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The New Deal

blog.ycombinator.com

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131–140 of 194 posts

Re: The New Deal

#131

Post by FD3SA »

morgante wrote: post #97
Beliavsky wrote: post #11

I 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…

As someone who essentially took that path, I can't recommend it. My parents and I had saved up a decent college fund ($100k or so), but instead of using that to go to Top School I took the chance on a school which offered me a full ride. Sure, I'll be graduating about ~$140k better off than most other students. But over the lifetime of a successful tech entrepreneur that amount of money is fairly meaningless. Having…

Listen to this man. Going to a top school has a massive effect on your luck surface area.

Given that the best course materials can increasingly be found online, the only benefit of a school is its social network, in which the elite schools have a formidable monopoly.

Re: The New Deal

#132

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #107
newsum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. move into your mother's house. become a 1099 contractor at $100/hr+. save, save, and save. a year later there's your bootstrap funds + credit cards, excess of 100K. Outsource design/dev if necessary, launch it, raise a large seed round/series A, valuation 4m+ You don't have to give away anything. be an entrepreneur.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The New Deal

#133

Post by abracar »

DonGateley wrote: post #126
zmitri wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second point is spot on. Before it was kind of explicit that you should take the SAFE, but if you weren't familiar with financial instruments or how exactly MFN clauses worked, you could run into issues you weren't completely aware of. The new way smooths all that out.

If one isn't familiar with said financial instruments and all of the other terminology in these comments what is the best remedy for that? Is there any book whose content is pretty much constrained to the elements discussed here?

I keep hearing this book is a must-read: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/venture-deals-be-sma... If you don't want to buy it, you should check out the Venture Hacks Bible: http://venturehacks.com/friends I'm not sure any of them mentions SAFEs because they're very recent, you can read more details in YC's announcement: http://ycombinator.com/safe/

Re: The New Deal

#134

Post by maxbrown »

argonaut wrote: post #83
yahelc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is, incidentally, not dissimilar from the signaling effects of attending Harvard/MIT/Stanford.

In the tech world, the YC signal > H/M/S signal.

Kind of a generalization, no? Do you mean specifically for startup success and/or raising VC money?

Re: The New Deal

#135

Post by abracar »

newsum wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I just don't agree. 120k barely makes expenses for 1 FTE. Not only that, but it's also an amount of money that a strong freelancer can generate on top of living expenses in a particularly well-utilized year.

Exactly. move into your mother's house. become a 1099 contractor at $100/hr+. save, save, and save. a year later there's your bootstrap funds + credit cards, excess of 100K. Outsource design/dev if necessary, launch it, raise a large seed round/series A, valuation 4m+ You don't have to give away anything. be an entrepreneur.

Outsourcing design/dev doesn't sound like a good idea (nor does credit card debt)

Re: The New Deal

#136

Post by wellboy »

chaseadam17 wrote: post #112
tomasien wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed it's amazing - are they getting anything in return? I'm not asking this in a skeptical way, I just mean do the non-profits run tee-springs or are they just donating money? Either way, bravo!

They're not asking for anything in return.

Startups for Startups, they will get back way beyond what they gave away. Great things will come to you if you're not asking for anything in return, because people do remember.

Re: The New Deal

#137

Post by hga »

Beliavsky wrote: post #11

I 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…

In the case of "a son who loves to program", if the target is a Computer Science degree, if your son can get into any one of Stanford, UC Berkeley, CMU or MIT, go for it. These are the top CS schools in the US and I gather the world, and there's a big quality gap between them and those below them.

Re: The New Deal

#138

Post by newsum »

abracar wrote: post #135
newsum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. move into your mother's house. become a 1099 contractor at $100/hr+. save, save, and save. a year later there's your bootstrap funds + credit cards, excess of 100K. Outsource design/dev if necessary, launch it, raise a large seed round/series A, valuation 4m+ You don't have to give away anything. be an entrepreneur.

Outsourcing design/dev doesn't sound like a good idea (nor does credit card debt)

nor does hoping/praying to get into YC so you can build the company of your dreams. take risks, calculated of course.

Re: The New Deal

#140

Post by jedberg »

Beliavsky wrote: post #11

I 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…

Back in the 90s, I had a friend who was an instructor for Sun Certification classes. He told us of a kid who, when he turned 18, was given his college savings by his parents to do with as he pleased. He chose to spend the ~200K getting every Sun cert available.

He then became a consultant at 21 making about $500K a year, at least for a few years. Don't know what happened to him after those certs became useless, but I hope he converted somehow.

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