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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

#181

Post by skeeter2020 »

bko wrote: post #157
Maro wrote: post #134

I can't quite put my finger on it, but this announcement gives me bad vibes.

I think a few things: Wanting to finish school is a negative signal. Also > Also we know that many students spend a lot of time in Fall or during their final year applying for jobs or internships. Early Decision gives students another option: apply to YC and bet on yourself. So now YC is an alternative to searching and apply for jobs? I think if you're marginal on trying to find a corporate job or starting something,…

honest question: do you think that in a job market where it seems to be ridiculously hard to land that junior corporate job maybe starting your own thing is a increasingly valid alternative? I'm not sure this is aligned with the properties that YC is necessarily shopping for (they seem to compete with companies eager to hire the same people) but maybe if you're a newish grad from a lesser-known school? My sample size of one includes someone who did that in the 90's and built a $B+ valued company.

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

#182

Post by estearum »

floriferous wrote: post #158
Maro wrote: post #134

I can't quite put my finger on it, but this announcement gives me bad vibes.

Exactly the same feeling here, it's such a strange thing to promise a kid they are accepted into a program, but it starts in like 4 years. As if all of your education (and probably side-projects, life decisions) is meant to lead to YC.

> Also, if you're not in your final year, you can still apply for Early Decision. You'll be able to finish the school year you're currently in,

It's a one-year early decision, like pretty much every other early decision program.

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

#183

Post by fakedang »

dvrp wrote: post #129

Paul Graham Essay and early YC: live your life, don’t start a company in your 20s. You are young only once. Post Paul Graham YC: reserve your YC spot now. There’s no downside!

Doesn't PG actually argue for startups as the "surest" route to million dollar "success"?

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

#184

Post by skeeter2020 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #166
Maro wrote: post #134

I can't quite put my finger on it, but this announcement gives me bad vibes.

I have been thoroughly enjoying re-watching HBO's Silicon Valley, appreciating all the little details and sub-plots I missed during my first watching long ago. It's aged so well. It's telling how many people are afraid to watch that show and detest it because it's just so spot on accurate, and they cringe when they see themselves in its characters and their own lives in its plots.

I love the show and rewatch it often, but if you lived in that world during the show's timeframe you can see it's changed draamtically. It still holds up as the "vision" of what we thought a SW startup looks like, but the reality is these scrappy little altruistic startups are not lead by hands-on tech founders, they're all taking the money today - often from PE - and are already the people from the show we laughed at. Show a member of a YC25 class SV today and they'll think Gavin Belson is a "how-to" tutorial.

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

#185

Post by skeeter2020 »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #161
flkenosad wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did it to the smartest kid in our CS class. I feel bad now because I feel like he deserves a degree.

A classmate of mine dropped out to do this. Failed, and ended up picking up later to finish the last two years of college. It really didn’t seem to have slowed them down, and finishing college a few years later (with some startup founders experience) seems to have been overall good. Unfortunately did end up going to Boston Consulting Group from on-campus recruiting, so not a great end to the story, but historically t…

I get the feeling only very affluent and well-supported people follow this path, and they probably don't need THiel's money to do it. The vast majority don't have a few years at this stage of their life to play the lottery.

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

#186

Post by skeeter2020 »

keiferski wrote: post #140
dvrp wrote: post #129

Paul Graham Essay and early YC: live your life, don’t start a company in your 20s. You are young only once. Post Paul Graham YC: reserve your YC spot now. There’s no downside!

Honestly I think there are two different audiences. The type of person that is open to traveling, exploring jobs, etc. in their twenties is different from the “institutional pipeline” track of good high school > good college > good job. This early decision thing is functionally going to move a few pipeline kids from the corporate world to the startup world, which probably isn’t a terrible outcome. But it also reflect…

it's unclear to me which track you think YC runs on - stuffy corporate or hip & edgy explorer?

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

#187

Post by skeeter2020 »

nivertech wrote: post #109
neilv wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly I agree. But I also think that someone who is very good, and in a very good MBA program, can do their share of contributions, iff they're committed fully to the startup upon graduation. But if the follow-through doesn't happen, then the whole thing was probably a huge waste for non-MBA-student co-founders. (Unless those co-founders weren't really committed themselves.)

Maybe a 18-24 months cliff would solve it?

you need a way to cause the termination for this to help. IME most things linger in zombie mode forever, they don't explode early.

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

#188

Post by aliston »

timr wrote: post #14
mikert89 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bac…

Wait, are you saying the Obama O’s story - that the 500 boxes sold out, saving AirBnb - is not totally true?

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

#189

Post by skeeter2020 »

ramon156 wrote: post #174

Fun fact, not every startup needs funding. Seems like post paul doesn't really talk about this anymore.

AP (After Paul) is much more concerned with traditional VC exits; YC is just another firm now, but because they invented the space get to trade on their name a while longer.

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

#190

Post by siva7 »

dvrp wrote: post #129

Paul Graham Essay and early YC: live your life, don’t start a company in your 20s. You are young only once. Post Paul Graham YC: reserve your YC spot now. There’s no downside!

> Paul Graham Essay and early YC: live your life, don’t start a company in your 20s. You are young only once.

I've been lurking on HN since 2008 and can't remember a time where i got the vibe from pg to be like "live your life" instead of "start a company now and apply". Can you point to some specific essay you had in mind?

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