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Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#161

Post by maxklein »

webwright wrote: post #149
edw519 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your intent was to bring attention to yourself in the 11th hour, you may have succeeded. That attention, however, may not be what you wanted. As a male, I will not pretend to imagine what you go through because of our differences. I can only speak from my experience as a wimpy appearing introvert who has had earn everything I've ever had because hardly anyone has ever given me anything. I do not mean to offend and…

Agreed and +1. I hope/trust the OP consulted her co-founders before posting this, because I don't think it helps their chances. It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman. That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just…

Good at what?

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#162

Post by bravura »

webwright wrote: post #149
edw519 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your intent was to bring attention to yourself in the 11th hour, you may have succeeded. That attention, however, may not be what you wanted. As a male, I will not pretend to imagine what you go through because of our differences. I can only speak from my experience as a wimpy appearing introvert who has had earn everything I've ever had because hardly anyone has ever given me anything. I do not mean to offend and…

Agreed and +1. I hope/trust the OP consulted her co-founders before posting this, because I don't think it helps their chances. It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman. That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just…

But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting.

I can understand how people found this discussion insulting, especially when it got blown out of proportion. It wasn't tianaco's intention.

I saw the application she submitted which she is leading. She focuses on differentiating herself from typical entrepreneurs, and a lot of that has to do with her unique experiences. She was confident this would play well with the YC team. She was fearful that it would work against her with YC alum. That's why she started this thread.

tianaco is a vocal person who says what she thinks. In some circumstances, this has hurt her. More often than not, it has opened the door to opportunities that don't exist for other people. Regardless, she has made a conscious choice to live her life speaking up. Whether this thread helped her or hurt her is unknown.

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#163

Post by chrysb »

mattm wrote: post #157
tianaco wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about them looking at my breasts. More often they look away from me as if I don't exist at all.

Keep in mind, these are IT guys. I usually have to remind myself to look in someone's eyes when talking, be it man or woman. If I'm focusing on something else when someone is talking to me I might not even look at them at all. From what I've read about the differences between men and women, women are MUCH MUCH more likely to pick up subtle body language gestures compared to men and try to analyze what they mean. Try…

Exactly. Lots of them are "awkward" or not "socially adept". Get used to it :)

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#165

Post by tianaco »

webwright wrote: post #149
edw519 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your intent was to bring attention to yourself in the 11th hour, you may have succeeded. That attention, however, may not be what you wanted. As a male, I will not pretend to imagine what you go through because of our differences. I can only speak from my experience as a wimpy appearing introvert who has had earn everything I've ever had because hardly anyone has ever given me anything. I do not mean to offend and…

Agreed and +1. I hope/trust the OP consulted her co-founders before posting this, because I don't think it helps their chances. It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman. That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just…

I don't expect points for being female, but it is something that sets me apart in this scenario.

I don't think you, a YC alum, would necessarily dock me for being a woman. I do think that you might not find some of my accomplishments as interesting as you would someone more like you. Is that unfair? Only if I knew YC alums were reading my application after I submitted it. Because I would have tailored it to you in the first place, the YC alum. It would take too long to re-tailor it at this point!

That's ALL I meant with this thread.

I apologize for any misunderstanding or offense taken.

With all due respect, you don't know how you would deal with being a minority until you've been one.

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#166

Post by Major_Grooves »

tianaco wrote: post #147
nadam wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you have a little prejudice:) about: - successful applicants i.e. outside-of-the-box people may not have an idea about who are outside the box people. - most of these outside-of-the-box people are males an can be simply categorized as 'coders'. In fact I don't get your problem exactly. I suppose that there can be 2 cases, which is true? A. You are a 'female coder' and you think that 'male coders' have such a preju…

B. I'm not a coder. I feel that most of my accomplishments will not read as well to a coder as they won't identify with them. That's it. (I have technical co-founders)

Well that's it then. It's just because you're a non-coder (presuming these negative experiences have been when speaking to coders rather than men in general). You're in the same boat as me! Try coming to a YC BBQ - that was a pretty tech-intense experience for me!

You'll find a lot of the coders that you feel uncomfortable with, would feel quite uncomfortable at the type of events you revel in.

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#167

Post by adw »

I've got no stake in any of this at all - never applied to YC, doubt I ever will - but something which'd bother me a little: what if a company applied a while back and hasn't seen this HN thread? You can guarantee that at least one set of founders is going to be on holiday.

The problem, though, is that I imagine that'd it be really hard, what with the number of applications there'll be, to individually reach out to applicants before making their applications available to anyone other than the partners...

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#168

Post by bastian »

This is a brilliant decision. I attended Startup School this weekend, and used the event and the surrounding parties to pitch our idea to at least 10+ Y-Combinator startups. Every time i pitched our company i learned something new and got great feedback on how to pitch it better next time. Startups that are concerned about this, should realise that to be accepted to Y-Combinator is not the goal of your startup. It is more than everything else a great test for yourself. Are you able to explain your idea in a couple of sentences, do you have a great founding team, is there really a market for what you are building? Trust me, when i remind you that making your company succeed is much harder than filling out the Y-Combinator application form.

Having other startups validating your idea is a great way to actually proof your team, competence and idea. We're based in London and despite the fact that we were lucky enough to know a couple of YC startups, that gave us great feedback on our application, we're thrilled to know that our idea, our team and our startup will be reviewed by a couple of other great YC startups.

Mark Zuckerberg, probably put it best during his Startup School talk. He told the audience that instead of going for the universities that really wanted to use Facebook, they rolled out Facebook to the universities that seemed the least interested in it. I think this is a brilliant move to test your product. The same applies here.

Good luck to everyone!

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#169

Post by neurotech1 »

pg wrote: post #7
jpwagner wrote: post #3

While I personally don't have a problem with this, I can fathom how some would. What about (1) announcing who is reading and (2) allowing applicants to specify who should NOT read their application. Just a thought, there should probably be some more thought on this kind of privacy/conflict since they will not be investors and I'm assuming you will make this standard procedure.

I'd rather make the system based on trusting people. Also, paranoia about secrecy is one of our selection criteria. E.g. every cycle there are a few applications that say they won't tell us any details about what they're doing without an NDA. We thereupon instantly hit "next." People who think their startup's success is going to follow from their immensely valuable secret idea are disproportionately likely to have ba…

Not to mention that most successful do not have the the time to segway off on someone else vague but 'brilliant' idea.

I know electrical engineers who have zero interest in Schematics/PCB files etc -ready to manufacture - because the time to complete a project is excessive for something that is not their core focus.

Re: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

#170

Post by webwright »

bravura wrote: post #162
webwright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed and +1. I hope/trust the OP consulted her co-founders before posting this, because I don't think it helps their chances. It's insulting to Jessica to think that she'd give her "points" for being female. And it's insulting to YC founders to say that we'd somehow dock her for being a woman. That being said-- both are possible. Spend a few months doing A/B testing, read about priming studies, and you realize just…

But just because it's possible doesn't mean that it isn't insulting. I can understand how people found this discussion insulting, especially when it got blown out of proportion. It wasn't tianaco's intention. I saw the application she submitted which she is leading. She focuses on differentiating herself from typical entrepreneurs, and a lot of that has to do with her unique experiences. She was confident this would…

"tianaco is a vocal person who says what she thinks."

As a team member, she oughta reign this in a bit. As a company founder, saying what you think can sometimes hurt your company. I think you have a duty to put a buffer between your brain and your mouth, especially around touchy subjects. If you always say what you think around investors and customers, you'll probably have fewer of both. :-)

I think a lot of people (PG included) have remarked that founders are ALWAYS selling (to customers, investors, new hires, reporters, etc). Part of selling is the ability to anticipate a reaction before you say something and to say the things that will elicit the reaction that you want. Or, at very least, speak the truth in such a way that it maximizes the effect that you want and minimizes the damage that it might cause. Example: last night I ate a juicy organic steak vs. last night I ate a muscle tissue sample of a castrated bull (hat tip to Robert Heinlein).

We all make mistakes-- I HOPE she realizes that there's a reasonable chance that she (and her company) might have been better off if she hadn't said what she did or said it in a different way.

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