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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

#211

Post by 999900000999 »

DonHopkins wrote: post #169
999900000999 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not too late ! Still, I think you need to be well connected, or already profitable for VC fundraising. Otherwise your just another programmer with hacked together prototype.

Better than just another Idea Guy with an MBA.

There are two types of idea guys, Idea Guys who actually can get funding.

And those who can't.

I've already wasted too much time creating small prototypes and then cold calling/emailing VCs/YC.

It's a big club and I'm not in it, at this point I'd rather just make weird games with my friends and open source them versus trying to chase a dime.

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

#212

Post by DonHopkins »

shafyy wrote: post #137
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!

Gives me weirdo Thiel vibes who pays (or used to pay) kids to drop out of college and start a company for him.

Or weirdo Russ Hanneman vibes who bought a company called The Lady so he could use his phone as a parental remote control to raise his kid with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGy5SGTuAGI&t=217s

A company I'm funding, we call it The Lady.

I press the button, and The Lady tells Aspen when it's time for bed, time to take a bath, when his fucking mother's here to pick him up.

I get to be his friend, and she's the bad guy.

I've disrupted fatherhood!

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

#214

Post by podgorniy »

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!

First time he gave that advise it was not directly affecting his company profit chances. Second time though is different.

--

Another good example of expressing and exersiging values, how easy to construct appealing narrative regardless of underlying subject and something else what I can't pinpoint at this stage...

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

#215

Post by hnthrowaway121 »

AfterHIA wrote: post #206
hnthrowaway121 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senior year of college, aren’t we talking 21/22 year olds?

Having had friends that went to a technical high school I have a feeling that there's a subtle suggestion that, "graduates" might refer to talented kids coming out of high school. At any rate suggesting to a young person that they should essentially ruin their life to chase a pipe dream is unethical especially when you benefit financially from making these suggestions.

That’s clearly not the suggestion of the post. It only mentions college students. There is no child abuse.

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

#216

Post by __loam »

cm2012 wrote: post #208
__loam wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting inexperienced kids with good credentials who are amenable to listening to a board in charge of these things is part of the yc business model.

As someone who has worked with many boards and execs, I cannot tell how wrong this way of looking at the world is. Execs universally love working with people who maximize proactivity and strong opinions. The opposite of what you think.

Yes we know execs are going to drink as much kool-aid as they need to to join this group of people and they'll probably love the process, especially when they're getting sweetheart liquidity deals earlier than everyone else at these firms.

I'm not really concerned with that. I'm more interested in the aggregate effect of putting a significant amount of the industry in the hands of a few ignorant twenty somethings and the small group of wealthy people from the bay area who are on all these boards. That is a frightening level of power concentrated in the hands of a small and anti-democratic structure.

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

#217

Post by zulban »

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!

I've had to explain this to several people: YC goals are not our goals. For YC, it would be great for lots of people to burn down their lives for even the slimmest chance at success.

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

#218

Post by asimpleusecase »

There is so much online to help jumpstart a young entrepreneur- they can have some small sense of what they are in for. As far as start a company vs get a job, just being told that is an option can be super empowering. I agree that burning up a few years in a failed company as a young entrepreneur does not have a good monetary outcome, but it does help them gain a ton of real world experience that can serve them well their whole life.

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

#219

Post by FinnLobsien »

I think everyone criticizing this is comparing it to the wrong thing. Many ambitious students:

-graduate and work 100 hour+ weeks as investment banking associates.

-join other people's startups where they work crazy hours

-work hellish hours in PhDs/med school/law school

Yes, being a founder is hard and can be absolute hell at times. But so are some of the "normal" things ambitious students already do post-graduation.

It's not like YC is saying you either do an internship with free lunches, corporate yoga classes and kombucha on tap or you dive into the trenches of being a YC founder.

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

#220

Post by throwaw12 »

My advice to 20 year olds, don't go to startups, go to big tech while it still pays good salary, build up your wealth, network and how things work at such corporations.

Then at mid 30s get hired as Dir/VP of engineering in smaller Series A startup.

You will have higher chance to retire early and/or afford yourself to work on things you like later on.

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