Hello Sam,
Any plans to open up a YC hub in Mexico. The startup scene is in an infant stage but it seems to be growing very fast. 500 startup is already funding companies here[1].
Thank you!
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
391–400 of 757 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#392Honest question on how profitable Y Combinator really is. What is Y Combinator's average portfolio return before management fees and carry?
We don't have outside investors, so there isn't fee or carry.
Our returns are very good (triple digit IRR) but still mostly unrealized.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#393Most people fund ideas, some fund founders. What do you think about funding dreams?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#394What are your thoughts on drug use among the entrepreneur/tech communities?
Specifically modafinil, amphetamines, psychedelics.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup,…
>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k enough for a person to live without roommates within 20-30 minutes commute from said startup? Eat healthy food? Pay student loans? Have health insurance and build savings? I'm not from the Bay Area- this is a serious question.
Please don't side track this thread with salary discussion in bay area. There are plenty of HN threads where this has been talked extensively.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#396Hi Sam. If the company applies for the second time with some progress made, is it treated differently, like "Ahhh... the same guys. Let's see what they have done since last time"? Does it matter at all?
Yes. If you reapply with the same idea, the first thing we look at is progress since last time.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup,…
>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k enough for a person to live without roommates within 20-30 minutes commute from said startup? Eat healthy food? Pay student loans? Have health insurance and build savings? I'm not from the Bay Area- this is a serious question.
Everything except the student loans, yes.
If you have student loans you'd need to get a roommate (or two).
Source: I live in the Bay area, and got a job at bigco but a salary similar to 100k. Almost no education loans (under 5k), but about 40k of loans for parents back home. I paid it back in a year and a little bit more.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. When I was running my startup, we got catastrophic news that the first big customer in the space (Boost Mobile) was signing a deal with a competitor instead of with us. This would have killed us. The competitor was a much larger and better funded company that had been around for years. I was a 20 year old CEO. Most big companies do not like to make risky decisions, so this was not entirely surprising. We got th…
That sounds a bit creepy. How did you know which guy it was and what flight he will be taking? To track him like that seems creepy.
I think it means he (sama) took a flight to be at the guy's office first thing in the morning, to wait for the guy to show up at the office.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#399You have suggested that Silicon Valley is successful, in part, because workers accept a notion of "long-term compensation" [1]. Long-term compensation, perhaps better called maybe-someday compensation, requires SV software engineers to work for relatively less (factoring in cost-of-living) than many other skilled professionals, with hopes that they'll be rewarded with a big windfall in the future. With the rising cos…
It's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup,…
I interviewed for a company once that had different kinds of offers, ranging from low-salary/high-equity, to high-salary/low-equity. I thought that was an interesting idea :D They had 5 options total, and the middle option wasn't awful. I'd like to see more of this in the valley.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#400Would you or any other YC partners consider making a trip out to Georgia Tech to give a talk? We don't get too much love being in the south east, but there are many hundreds of talented engineering students here that would benefit greatly from hearing about YC and the startup world in general.