221–230 of 290 posts
You should consider placing them into a 1 or 2 year “on the job training” program at another YC company before sticking them in a batch. Maybe you could offer that as a “waitlist” option.
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.
Your chances of success is lower than YC's chances of success because they invest to many companies in parallel, but you can only work for 1 company
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.
I'm tempted to think that YC knows better than I do here, but my experience suggests this is a bad idea. The worst managers I've had were inexperienced, and someone who's 22 won't know when they need someone experienced, or how to talk to customers. Many of them may be too nervous to act, and since they can apply under the safety of also applying for jobs they may not be as motivated. I suspect this is just a ploy to get more Stanford grads to apply but I'm not sure it's the best way to go about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In what way is this "ruining your life"? If things don't go as planned, I imagine the person would be in a good position to pivot to higher education/a different job/starting something new. I think this idea that ruining one's life == not following the exact k-12 -> college -> big corporation route is short sighted.
Your will see that you are putting you self at risk - especially if you had the opportunity to work at an renowned business.
Eg. Having 2 no name defunct businesses on your resume you claim as startups over 3 years will likely not benefit you so much.
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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?
IMO if you're trying to decide between a well-paid job and starting a company...you probably aren't cut out to start a company. But...the infrastructure for choosing the latter option is becoming developed and safe enough that realistically speaking, it may actually be the optimal non-entrepreneurial career choice.
That being said, I can see this being useful to a lot of kids. Certainly beats going to grad school for someone who wants to start a company. Keep in mind that a 500K SAFE doesn't force a founder to go big or zero-out.
It does make me uneasy that founding companies is becoming another tracked thing that people feel they can apply high-IQ pattern-matching to. Especially when startups are where first-principles thinking is the most valuable. That being said, I can see this being useful to a lot of kids. Certainly beats going to grad school for someone who wants to start a company. Keep in mind that a 500K SAFE doesn't force a founder…
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.
the better question is: how do these two investors differentiate themselves?