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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

#51

Post by hnriot »

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…

Having now gone publicly on record with this, I wonder what kind of lawsuits this might lead to down the road. I could imagine that any company pg sits on the board of would now have their lawyers scratching their heads how they are going to minimize their risk.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#52

Post by arbuge »

unono wrote: post #26

Does anyone know what has been PG's ROI on his investments is, for all we know it could be below industry standard. Also, by PG's own words he only invests in the relentlessly resourceful. What do they need PG and later round VC's for? I always get the feeling with PG that something hidden is at play, he's a really really clever guy. There's a sucker getting played when he's around. (For example, Zuckerburg is not as…

>> Does anyone know what has been PG's ROI on his investments is, for all we know it could be below industry standard.

Hell no. Just do the math:

http://ycombinator.com/nums.html

The total value of YC companies is more like $12B today. That makes their average 6% stake worth around $700m or so. Around 600 companies total, at around $20k each - a total investment of just $12m or so by my calculations.

$12m to $700m in <10 years is about as good as it gets in investing.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#53

Post by opminion »

larrys wrote: post #36
ngoel36 wrote: 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 l…

The reason might be not cluelessness, bad attitude, rigid thinking or bad marketing, but the hidden costs of your suggestions. Many migrants tend to spend an inordinate amount of time, during the first months, thinking about how they might be perceived, often playing pointless guessing games. For example: having two different names is an additional source of confusion, and a constant reminder of "otherness". These costs have to be balanced against the perceived benefits. Sometimes they are worth it, often times not.

Focusing on improving communication skills is different because the cost is time, effort and perhaps money, but there are no negative side effects.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#54

Post by sliverstorm »

c0mpute wrote: post #38
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…

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.

That statistic is meaningless. As pg said explicitly, the problem is not being foreign. The problem is having an accent so thick no one understands you when you speak.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#55

Post by NhanH »

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…

Can anyone here share their experience on how they get rid of their accent? As a non-native speaker, there are some phonemes that are just straight up unrecognisable for me : "h" - "x", "war" - "wall", "word" - "world" to name a few. I recognized the problem about a year ago and has been trying to figure it out since then, albeit without much success.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#56

Post by hnriot »

pg wrote: 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 don't see anything very distinctive. Aside from the usual colorful doors == sf startup, the place (from that photograph) looks just like any other startup space (except darker, but that's likely because it would have made taking that photo difficult if the background were bright)

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#57

Post by NhanH »

larrys wrote: post #36
ngoel36 wrote: 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 l…

I've actually asked some American (one of them being my boss) on whether I should be using an American name to make it easier for everyone at work.

I received two "It's weird" answers, and haven't asked the third person yet.

Considering that my name is relative short (the first 4 letter of my username, Americans tend to remember the "h" and "a"'s position swapped though), would you consider it a difficult name to remember or not?

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#58

Post by unono »

arbuge wrote: post #52
unono wrote: post #26

Does anyone know what has been PG's ROI on his investments is, for all we know it could be below industry standard. Also, by PG's own words he only invests in the relentlessly resourceful. What do they need PG and later round VC's for? I always get the feeling with PG that something hidden is at play, he's a really really clever guy. There's a sucker getting played when he's around. (For example, Zuckerburg is not as…

>> Does anyone know what has been PG's ROI on his investments is, for all we know it could be below industry standard. Hell no. Just do the math: http://ycombinator.com/nums.html The total value of YC companies is more like $12B today. That makes their average 6% stake worth around $700m or so. Around 600 companies total, at around $20k each - a total investment of just $12m or so by my calculations. $12m to $700m in…

If that's true, then that's astounding. Why isn't some huge wall street fund swooping in to this? Do people not know. The White House should be calling in PG for advice.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#59

Post by mahyarm »

NhanH wrote: post #57
larrys wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 l…

I've actually asked some American (one of them being my boss) on whether I should be using an American name to make it easier for everyone at work. I received two "It's weird" answers, and haven't asked the third person yet. Considering that my name is relative short (the first 4 letter of my username, Americans tend to remember the "h" and "a"'s position swapped though), would you consider it a difficult name to rem…

I use my real name and offer them an easy to use nickname in the same sentence. I've been doing it since childhood.

Re: Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth

#60

Post by nwhitehead »

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.

Coming at it from the teaching side there is definitely a high correlation between lack of foreign accent and good teaching skills. In school I used to help assign graduate TAs into math sections. We would go through and rate all the graduate students by teaching skill and then use that to divide up teaching and grading assignments.

The data showed unambiguously that TAs who lost their accent were much better teachers than those who didn't. It wasn't about not being able to understand the words of the TA; there was an English qualification test that weeded out anyone who couldn't be understood clearly. I think the lack of accent was a proxy for other changes, like being adaptable and willing to alter one's behavior. The bad TAs with accents tended to use ineffective teaching techniques and not change while the good TAs updated their teaching methods based on feedback.

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