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Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

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31–40 of 175 posts

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#31
post #18

I'm really disappointed that this was Paul's top of mind criterion for rejection, "One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent." That reminds me of an incident earlier in my career when a recruiter ranked candidates on their 'communication skills', which really was a proxy for whether they were an immigrant or not, in order to try to avoid discrimination laws. http://www.freshbook…

There's a bit of conflation between cause and effect here.

Seems he was just saying that those with strong accents were less successful in previous rounds. That certainly could be due to prejudice in society at large, but it still would be a valid predictor.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#32
post #4

"He is brilliant and hilariously funny." How is being hilariously funny an advantage in terms of working for YC?

I think a good sense of humor is an advantage at every company. I'm a Scum Master, been at it 7 years, and I shudder to think what my experience would be like if I didn't have a sense of humor. (Some say over active, but let's not quibble)

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#33
post #3

" If a place has really good food, it can be in an obscure location, charge a lot, and have really bad service, and it will still be popular. If it has bad food, boy, it better do something really special to get anybody in there." The "special" can be "location". Food on the NJ Turnpike (or similar) is an example of a captive market where quality of food is not the key ingredient but landing the contract and being me…

I see the times square trend in Myrtle Beach, in a slightly different way: poorly run (which includes bad food) restaurants can be open only seasonal, get sufficient 'incidental' business to survive and then shut down during the off season due to low property costs. I suspect eventually property valuations will make it too attractive to sell out to more profitable business, whether thats due to being better run or all-year.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#34
post #2

That's a very Kate Courteau picture incidentally. She's our architect, and is the reason YC looks so distinctive. It's hard to get simple right, but she does.

I love the way she used a super wide shot to pull in so many graphic elements - beautifully done, Kate Courteau.

oh I see now that she didn't take the actual picture but Jason Madara did that -

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#35
post #13

"One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent...they must just be clueless if they haven't gotten rid of their strong accent." I'm curious to learn more about this. I'm certainly not accusing YC/PG of being racist in the least, but although I don't have an accent, I feel like I know numerously brilliantly smart people with heavy accents, many of whom happen to be Indian-born Stanfo…

I talked about this on another thread, but by strong accent I mean so strong that people have a hard time understanding you. It's not a problem if founders have accents as strong as, say, the Collison brothers'.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#36
post #13

"One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent...they must just be clueless if they haven't gotten rid of their strong accent." I'm curious to learn more about this. I'm certainly not accusing YC/PG of being racist in the least, but although I don't have an accent, I feel like I know numerously brilliantly smart people with heavy accents, many of whom happen to be Indian-born Stanfo…

"they must just be clueless if they haven't gotten rid of their strong accent"

Specifically "clueless". I agree with that but I also think it's an attitude as well in some people. I think even if it was explained to them they might not think that it would benefit them. In that case they are not clueless they are simply rigid in their thinking, right?

As the saying goes "when in rome do as the romans do"

Along those lines I am surprised at the number of people who are foreign born who don't change their names to something more Americanized.

Back when people came to this country at the turn of the century I believe the immigration people would give people americanized versions of their names so they wouldn't experience as much rejection or racisim. Maybe it was for other reasons as well.

Now you can look at it as wrong that people jump to conclusions or you can simply do what is practical and attempt to lessen the disadvantage that you are in if someone perceives you in the wrong way. If I am a member of a religious group and I know that people that I am selling to are biased against that religious group I see it as practical not to wear any symbol of that religious group. It's a business decision.

I'm not saying that someone needs to totally hide the fact that they are Indian, Chinese, or whatever. I'm simply saying you can make the name a little easier for people in America (where you live) to remember it. That's in a sense basic marketing.

Lastly, I've been approached by people trying to sell me with really difficult names to remember. I am less likely to connect them with others simply because their name is so hard to remember.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#37
post #18

I'm really disappointed that this was Paul's top of mind criterion for rejection, "One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent." That reminds me of an incident earlier in my career when a recruiter ranked candidates on their 'communication skills', which really was a proxy for whether they were an immigrant or not, in order to try to avoid discrimination laws. http://www.freshbook…

I have strong foreign accent and I can tell you: it is much harder to be a CEO with heavy accent than not.

Look this way... The job of a CEO is to hire and sell. And having heavy accent is a big disadvantage when doing these two things. So if you have strong foreign accent you should be aware of that and try to "hack it" and somehow use it in your advantage.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#38
post #30
post #18

I'm really disappointed that this was Paul's top of mind criterion for rejection, "One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent." That reminds me of an incident earlier in my career when a recruiter ranked candidates on their 'communication skills', which really was a proxy for whether they were an immigrant or not, in order to try to avoid discrimination laws. http://www.freshbook…

It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…

According to this article, 14% of the top 500 CEOs are non-native to the company's homeland.

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/leadership/2013/07/08/global-50...

Even empirically your dataset consists of startups that target USA markets mostly and hence this conclusion. I am guessing CEOs are good and can come from anywhere, its perhaps "sales" that really needs the idiomatic speak.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#39
It is amazing how much value and change in the world has occurred because of ycombinator companies, direct and follow on effects. And all of this for the paltry sum of 1.7 billion (ish) dollars.

The 1,467 Billion we've spent on the war(s) so far could have made ~850 ish entire ycombinators, on the order of 450k startups. As well as exhausting the entire io and ly domain name spaces.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#40
post #30
post #18

I'm really disappointed that this was Paul's top of mind criterion for rejection, "One quality that's a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent." That reminds me of an incident earlier in my career when a recruiter ranked candidates on their 'communication skills', which really was a proxy for whether they were an immigrant or not, in order to try to avoid discrimination laws. http://www.freshbook…

It's not our top criterion. It's just one that I'm willing to talk about publicly, because there's no way to fake it. We're not against funding people from outside the US, and we fund a lot of them. But 564 startups is enough to see patterns, and the empirical evidence about very strong accents is striking. And I am talking about failure to communicate here. I don't mean strong accents in the sense that it's clear th…

Do you keep any startup analytics?
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