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Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

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Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#41

Post by capkutay »

sunir wrote: 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…

'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."

There are a handful of successful immigrant CEO's in tech along with other industries (CEO of coca cola is just one example). One of the things they all have in common is excellent communication skills in english...so you can't necessarily write off that metric as an anti-immigrant filter.

This may be my opinion, but I don't know any tech companies that wouldn't hire someone just because they're from a different country other than for visa reasons.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#42

Post by spitfire »

pg wrote: post #30
sunir wrote: 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…

Sort of like your university calculus professor then? I remember students changing seminars just to avoid a certain not so easily understood prof.

I have zero doubt that it affected peoples grades. They couldn't clearly understand what was being said, and were less likely to ask for clarification if they knew communication would be a chore.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#43

Post by rustynails77 »

larrys wrote: 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…

Just to be clear, this rule doesn't work for McDonalds - as it's an established brand. Their food is awful, but the place tends to be clean and tidy - with a toilet. Interestingly, where I live, Burger Kings tend to be filthy and poorly maintained, with slightly better tasting food. They are also popular - so cleanliness doesn't seem to be a major contributor.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#44

Post by the_economist »

pg wrote: post #7
larrys wrote: post #4

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

That's actually a very interesting question. I've noticed for a while that the people who are best at giving advice to startups tend to be funny. It's not a job where it would be good to be the humorless variety of smart. I think the reason is not that being funny is important per se, but that being funny and having good ideas about startups are so similar that it's impossible to find one without the other.

Although one could imagine a humorless person spending 20 years of his life building startups and thus becoming a useful advisor, despite not being particularly funny. Another possibility is that the humorless type aren't as interested in offering to help.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#45

Post by znt »

pg wrote: post #30
sunir wrote: 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…

If I had read this reply 3 years ago, I would have called you "racist". But after spending time with engineers from different countries, I believe having an understandable English accent is not a nice thing to have, but rather a professional responsibility.

I have personally witnessed people losing their jobs/contracts because of this issue, and although I enjoyed their friendship, I wasn't really sorry for losing a teammate. Because trying to solve a technical issue while your mate uses a very broken accent is very very mind numbing and frustrating at its best.

Interestingly, my wife was also having trouble with pronunciation of certain English words as she was learning the language, and I did not want her to have the same fate when (or if) she got a job.

So I created a very simple app for her to practise her pronunciation. Later on I turned it into a webapp when her classmates also wanted to try it. If you are interested you can check it out at: http://www.sayafter.me

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#46

Post by soneca »

spitfire wrote: post #42
pg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sort of like your university calculus professor then? I remember students changing seminars just to avoid a certain not so easily understood prof. I have zero doubt that it affected peoples grades. They couldn't clearly understand what was being said, and were less likely to ask for clarification if they knew communication would be a chore.

This happens all over the world?? In my university (USP at São Paulo, Brazil) there were several foreign - normally Russian - physics and calculus teachers with terrible accents - some were still learning portuguese.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#47

Post by pkfrank »

sitkack wrote: post #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.

It's important to note that YC skims from the top, taking the creme de la creme. Applying 1000x the money would not yield 1000x the return, as there's a finite number of the "good founders" PG notes.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#48

Post by 2arrs2ells »

sitkack wrote: post #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.

The limiting factor on YC is not cash.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#49

Post by beambot »

soneca wrote: post #46
spitfire wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of like your university calculus professor then? I remember students changing seminars just to avoid a certain not so easily understood prof. I have zero doubt that it affected peoples grades. They couldn't clearly understand what was being said, and were less likely to ask for clarification if they knew communication would be a chore.

This happens all over the world?? In my university (USP at São Paulo, Brazil) there were several foreign - normally Russian - physics and calculus teachers with terrible accents - some were still learning portuguese.

In my undergrad EE, we had an elderly german prof who pronounced "quiescent" as "christian." Awesome professor, but half the class didn't take the initiative to understand (1) the meaning of the word or (2) it's true pronunciation. Could you imagine communicating with these people in industry?! It would've been maddening.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#50

Post by arbuge »

larrys wrote: post #4

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

It's an advantage at working at any non-menial job anywhere. If you're competent as well as a pleasant person to work with, you'll go far in most fields.
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