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I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#661

Post by zeeshanm »

api wrote: post #249
mbym wrote: post #207

Question re solo founders: "A startup is too much work for one person" and if you can't convince even one friend to join you, that doesn't speak well for your idea! On the other hand, a bad hire/partnership can ruin the company. YC gives signal it really prefers to look at teams than individual applications. Q: Do you have have advice or rules of thumb re how much time a solo founder should put into finding partner(s…

Seconded: statistics such as these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77525 ... seem to show that very successful sole founder stories do exist. But nearly everything from the YC orbit says "find a partner or you'll fail," etc.

I find it even in the case when two or more founders were involved in starting some of these most successful companies only one of the founders took the initiative in the very early days.

The truth is it only takes one person to start something. And once you build something that has or can have tremendous value people will just join you naturally.

There is no such thing as the perfect moment to start something. You just have to do it and keep doing it and things will happen.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#662

Post by loceng »

paul wrote: post #533
mbym wrote: post #207

Question re solo founders: "A startup is too much work for one person" and if you can't convince even one friend to join you, that doesn't speak well for your idea! On the other hand, a bad hire/partnership can ruin the company. YC gives signal it really prefers to look at teams than individual applications. Q: Do you have have advice or rules of thumb re how much time a solo founder should put into finding partner(s…

Please don't let the lack of a cofounder discourage you from applying. It's definitely a huge help to have a good cofounder, but we accept great founders regardless. There's a tendency for people to want to reduce the world to black-and-white rules like, "yc doesn't accept single founders", but it simply isn't true. We are specifically looking for outliers, so any such rule would be a huge mistake (because the big hi…

Hi Paul. I applied last time with a video with the team, however with updated rules (they own less than 10% each) then they're not supposed to be in application video; I started my company many years ago and small team relatively recently joined as relating to the equity. I don't have time to redo an application video, and with a comment on HN from someone at YC during last application process - applying early increased chances of being selected, meaning once startups selected for interview that the application process still remains open - the odds feel negligible. Any thoughts?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#663

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

rday wrote: post #660
AstroChimpHam wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been both a founder and an early employee. As an early employee, I always received a salary, and knew I could leave any time I felt like it. My level of risk was low, and I was perfectly happy with my equity knowing I had a nice upside without much downside at all. As a founder, I haven't paid myself in months, and have commitments to my customers such that I 100% can't just shut things down and leave to do some…

I've been a founder and an early employee as well. As a founder, you sign on for the bad times. As an early employee, I always got duped. As an early employee, I've had to go without a paycheck on multiple occasions. I had to go without healthcare for several months even though I was told the company already had it in place. Sure, I could leave anytime I wanted. But I would forfeit all my stock if I left. Even if I l…

As an employee you're limited by the quality of the C-suite.

If you swap equity for salary, it's important to understand that you're not gambling on the quality of the product or the idea, but on the quality and integrity of the people you're working for.

You probably won't have enough information to make a good decision about their quality and integrity until you've been working somewhere for a while.

But generally, if one promise doesn't work out, you have good reason to suspect others won't too.

Equity is really just a promise. So you should have a lot of evidence of reliability and integrity before you count on it.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#664

Post by tarikjn »

sama wrote: post #325
bhayden wrote: post #303

I forget which speaker, it may have been Peter Thiel, was discussing how difficult starting a startup is at one of the startup school talks, and said "there are easier ways to make a lot of money". I would be curious if you knew what he (or whomever said that) would consider easier.

I think I was the one to say that. Working in finance is an easier and more predictable way to make a lot of money, as long as you can deal with the deep existential angst the comes from adding no value to the world :)

I would argue that things like markets/arbitrage/HFT actually add value to the world and down the line are important enablers for the startup ecosystem. It's just that finance jobs are fungible to some degree -- just like low/middle level developer jobs after all.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#665

Post by loceng »

paul wrote: post #533
mbym wrote: post #207

Question re solo founders: "A startup is too much work for one person" and if you can't convince even one friend to join you, that doesn't speak well for your idea! On the other hand, a bad hire/partnership can ruin the company. YC gives signal it really prefers to look at teams than individual applications. Q: Do you have have advice or rules of thumb re how much time a solo founder should put into finding partner(s…

Please don't let the lack of a cofounder discourage you from applying. It's definitely a huge help to have a good cofounder, but we accept great founders regardless. There's a tendency for people to want to reduce the world to black-and-white rules like, "yc doesn't accept single founders", but it simply isn't true. We are specifically looking for outliers, so any such rule would be a huge mistake (because the big hi…

Just read your Wiki page. The quote under "Other interests" really resonates with me. A few blog posts of mine you might like - http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/78764544562/profit-has-no-... and http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/72715425291/capitalism-and... - I'd love to hear your thoughts here or on the posts. Thank you.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#666

Post by rday »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #663
rday wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a founder and an early employee as well. As a founder, you sign on for the bad times. As an early employee, I always got duped. As an early employee, I've had to go without a paycheck on multiple occasions. I had to go without healthcare for several months even though I was told the company already had it in place. Sure, I could leave anytime I wanted. But I would forfeit all my stock if I left. Even if I l…

As an employee you're limited by the quality of the C-suite. If you swap equity for salary, it's important to understand that you're not gambling on the quality of the product or the idea, but on the quality and integrity of the people you're working for. You probably won't have enough information to make a good decision about their quality and integrity until you've been working somewhere for a while. But generally,…

I think you're quite right. I tend to feel that people want to do good, and make judgments based off that.

Since my early mistakes, I've started telling myself "You're not negotiating with the person across the table, you're negotiating with unknown parties and circumstances in the future".

That kind of removes the human element.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#667

Post by nwenzel »

upquark wrote: post #430

Possibly naive question: I'm a married guy in his 30s working at a major investment bank in NYC (lead quantitative role). I have a graduate degree from a non-elite school. No experience at top tech firms (had offers but didn't go). Now, I have some cool side projects that I believe could become great consumer apps given enough care and resources. Is there any reason for me to apply to YC, and any chance of getting se…

I'm mid-30s. Dangerously close to upper-30s. Married. Two kids. Non-elite school. No graduate degree. I was in the YC Summer 2013 batch. I wasn't an outlier.

The one thing all YC founders have in common is that we are all incredibly determined. Creating a company is easier than ever but still basically impossible.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#668

Post by AstroChimpHam »

rday wrote: post #660
AstroChimpHam wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been both a founder and an early employee. As an early employee, I always received a salary, and knew I could leave any time I felt like it. My level of risk was low, and I was perfectly happy with my equity knowing I had a nice upside without much downside at all. As a founder, I haven't paid myself in months, and have commitments to my customers such that I 100% can't just shut things down and leave to do some…

I've been a founder and an early employee as well. As a founder, you sign on for the bad times. As an early employee, I always got duped. As an early employee, I've had to go without a paycheck on multiple occasions. I had to go without healthcare for several months even though I was told the company already had it in place. Sure, I could leave anytime I wanted. But I would forfeit all my stock if I left. Even if I l…

In all situations, you really have to look after yourself. If someone ever asks you to work without pay, they're asking you to up your risk. Demand more equity. The greater the risk, the greater a return you should get, otherwise you're making a bad investment.

Founders can be assholes. So can investors. Always look after yourself (and your team, if applicable). Too many assholes and horror stories not to be wary.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#670

Post by koko775 »

daxelrod wrote: post #358
freehunter wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LOT of pushback? That link in another comment is the only pushback I've ever seen, and I use Alien Blue (having purchased it). I haven't even noticed sponsored posts on the mobile version (I have on the desktop site though), and they hardly bother me. I've never seen anyone else seriously complain about them either. Sam, if you're passing along GolfyMcG's feedback, please pass along mine as well. I run Ad Block, bu…

Here's the current status of ads, as I understand it: On iPhone, you only see sponsored posts if you have not purchased Pro. When they rolled out ads initially to iPhone, Pro users saw them and complained, Reddit said it was a bug, and fixed something on the backend to prevent them from being shown to Pro users. On iPad, you see sponsored posts even if you have Pro. As far as anyone can tell, this is intentional. Fro…

No, Alien Blue on iPad has not had a 'Pro' version in months.
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