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New Requests for Startups

ycombinator.com

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Re: New Requests for Startups

#141

Post by neuralk »

seiji wrote: post #108
mindcrime wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, "AI" is used as an umbrella term that definitely includes that kind of stuff. I can't speak for YC, but IMO Semantic Web work should probably fall under the AI umbrella in this case. (Edit: in the interest of full-disclosure, my startup is doing a lot of work with Semantic Web technologies, particularly in terms of applying them to Enterprise knowledge management)

I think there's two viewpoints. There's "outside in" when the media calls things like Siri "AI" then there's the scifi AI perspective where we want talking starships. Siri++ doesn't get us closer to sarcastic GSVs. If saying a structured connected wisdom of the crowds folksonomy is actually AI helps people get funding/attention/growth, that's what people will do. There's also "middle out," but that's a talk for anoth…

A third and important viewpoint is academia. In that realm, you'll often hear people give the definition: "AI is search," which would encompass reasoning algorithms, knowledge bases and ontologies like the Semantic Web. Deep Blue and Watson come to mind as the best examples of AI as reasoning through search.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#142

Post by crazypyro »

wffurr wrote: post #129
hazz wrote: post #51

>Specifically, lightweight, short-distance personal transportation is something we’re interested in. Doesn't this already exist, in the form of the bicycle?

Yes, this one was licked in 1885. The problem is not something amenable to a startup company. It's a huge entrenched cultural preference for terribly inefficient vehicles and development patterns that go with them. Bicycles are not an 80/20 solution, they're a 99% solution, with the appropriate kind of bicycle and accessories. You can haul all kinds of crap - construction equipment, children, appliances, etc. - with…

Everyone in this thread keeps bringing up the same argument about these catagories: "The problem is not something amenable to a startup company."

Isn't that the point of these requests? To inspire new and innovative ways of addressing a small (or, a chance at a larger) piece of these huge problem spaces?

It doesn't matter if you don't think these are realistic requests. YC is just trying put out an image that it wants to invest in historically "hard" market startups.

(As an aside, I'd say that bikes are not a 99% solution until the majority of people aren't afraid of riding them around cars.)

Re: New Requests for Startups

#143

Post by saosebastiao »

I think you really shortchanged the section on transportation by only focusing on personal transportation. The real opportunities are in commercial transportation and logistics. The US spends more on truck logistics every year than the market cap of the top 5 global car manufacturers combined. And the trucking industry is only 50% of the total logistics contribution to US GDP. Even a mildly successful startup in a tiny niche of logistics could result in a wildly profitable company.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#144

Post by akkartik »

Stwerner wrote: post #124
akkartik wrote: post #32

> What comes after programming languages? I've been working on this for several years, though a startup seems the wrong vehicle for it. I think the description in the RFS is misguided: "We’re interested in helping developers create better software, faster. This includes new ways to write, understand, and collaborate on code, and the next generation of tools and infrastructure for delivering software continuously and…

I've really enjoyed your writing on your blog at http://akkartik.name which I found through your guests posts at Ribbonfarm. Have you been writing anywhere else about your work or thoughts about readable programs?

Thanks! No new projects/demos/prototypes yet beyond the links at the bottom of http://akkartik.name/about, but I have a half-baked project in the works. Let's chat more offline; I sent you an email.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#145

Post by pavlov »

hazz wrote: post #51

>Specifically, lightweight, short-distance personal transportation is something we’re interested in. Doesn't this already exist, in the form of the bicycle?

Not long ago a brilliant inventor, Dean Kamen, created a startup that tried to solve this. The product received considerable hype before launch. When Steve Jobs saw a prototype, he reportedly said: "This will change the way cities are designed."

The final product -- Segway -- didn't, though. I'm not sure anyone is willing to try again soon.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#146

Post by rcarrigan87 »

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

The bigger question may be why do we even still have "textbooks," at least in their traditional form? Are textbooks the optimal way to learn given all the technology we have today? I'm sure there are quite a few start-ups working on this problem.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#147

Post by christiangenco »

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

I have a side project I started in college for this: http://textbooksplease.com

The big problem I'm facing right now is how to subvert universities requiring super specific and customized versions of their textbooks. I think the solution is a crowdsourced list of textbook alternatives (ie: "your university says you need Biology Harvard Custom Edition, but that book is the same as Biology minus chapters 6 and 11. You can get the generic edition for $11").

That's really just a bandaid, though. A real solution would look something like https://www.boundless.com/ or Khan Academy.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#148

Post by wellboy »

impendia wrote: post #114

Would somebody please disrupt the textbook publishing industry? http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susa... $264.39, for students that work part time jobs at $7.00 an hour (before taxes). Not only students are angry about this. Professors are angry, and authors are angry too. Bitter fights between professors and publishers are common. Everybody wants to see the big players in this industry fail .…

Chegg is doing this big time and they are already IPOd.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#149

Post by sillysaurus3 »

seiji wrote: post #125
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a previously-intractable problem can be solved in a tractable amount of time on a quantum computer is important. It doesn't mean the problem didn't exist before, but rather that the problem can now be solved. For all we know, making an intractable problem tractable is the necessary step to make AI a reality. In fact, it's hard to argue that it isn't, so quantum computing becomes very interesting.

For all we know, making an intractable problem tractable is the necessary step to make AI a reality. But, we know that's not a necessary step. We have computer vision systems working essentially the same way our brains perceive images (and since the new systems are on computers, we can speed them up millions of times to recognize millions of images quickly instead of relying on our dumb 10Hz to 100Hz brain clock). so…

I didn't say quantum computing magically reduced anything. You've set up a strawman and proceeded to beat it with a hammer. I said that quantum computers can solve previously-intractable problems.

We don't know what steps are necessary to reach AI, so we don't know what is or isn't a necessary step. Vision is a tiny part of cognition, as evidenced by the fact that there are fish which have no vision (or at least no human-like vision) since they live in absence of light. Yet they are alive: they reproduce, they seek food, they think, they do all of the things a living creature does, except see light.

Re: New Requests for Startups

#150

Post by [deleted] »

atonse wrote: post #68

While I've always felt a strong attraction to YCombinator (especially the cameraderie that comes from being a part of it) and been very inspired to apply, I can't help but feel that I am in a phase of life that's simply not a good fit for YC, or at least the narrative that's pushed. I'm no longer a mid 20-something that can live on Ramen and 16 hour days. I'm married and have a young child. Are there YC founders in t…

[deleted]
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