I'm more excited about the effect this will have in general than the effect it will have on YC companies. The difference for a YC company is that they don't have to give up an extra percentage as they raise their seed round to cover the convertible note/SAFE that they got from YCVC. With no discount, if a YC company raised at a $10M valuation that 80,000 would be worth .8% of the company - not enough to really move t…
POEM alert :affect...think you want effect :)
The New Deal
31–40 of 194 posts
Re: The New Deal
#32Forgive my ignorance, but what does LP stand for?
It's how many VC funds are structured. General Partners run the thing, while Limited Partners are investors with limited liability.
Re: The New Deal
#33I predict that this is going to lead to an increase in the number of applicants who have already raised some money (though not a full round). > Most people don’t do YC for the financial investment—they do it because they want the advice, the help of the network, the benefits of the program, etc. But still, more money for less equity is definitely better. This is good news for people who've issued convertible notes be…
Re: The New Deal
#34Forgive my ignorance, but what does LP stand for?
Re: The New Deal
#35Why do nonprofits get less money?
Re: The New Deal
#36Forgive my ignorance, but what does LP stand for?
Read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_partnership
Re: The New Deal
#37Getting accepted into YC immediately values your company at $1.7M.
To me, this kind of connects to the debate on employee equity that's been ongoing. Sure, intellectually we want to equate that with upfront salary and then compensate at the market rate. But in reality it can never be that way for a plethora of reasons -- tax concerns, option rules, difference in equity classes, etc.
Again, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I don't think people should view equity as dollars. To me, equity is better thought of as an entirely separate finite resource of a company. One which has different value to different people, depending on ability to take on risk.
Re: The New Deal
#38I have wondered if affluent parents can replicate at least the money part of Y Combinator. $120K is about the list price of two years of Harvard/MIT/Stanford . With a son who loves to program, I have wondered if sending him to a cheaper school and giving him the difference in installments after he graduates is better than paying for a "name" school. It depends on the quality of the cheaper school, of course. And I th…
EDIT: I'm not saying this can't be achieved at other schools - I didn't attend a "name" school, but the network definitely matters and can be a huge bonus especially if you know what industry you want to target.
Re: The New Deal
#39Re: The New Deal
#40Getting accepted into YC immediately values your company at $1.7M.
That actually makes sense. VC is a reputation-driven system. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. I'm not talking about YC but in general here: there are people way dumber than I am who can put in a good word for a startup and bump its perceived value (and, arguably, its expected return, because reputation is so big in this game) by 50% or more. In fact, I always held a pretty negative view of YC's prior low valuatio…