@SAM : Whats most excites you in startup
(1) Team
(2) Team from Harvard/Stanford/MIT
(3) Idea
(4) Idea with quick revenue model
(5) Good idea with Avg team
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
681–690 of 757 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The more progress you make on the business, the easier it will be to get a great cofounder. I am not trying to be pedantic...but are they really a cofounder if you've hashed out the idea and made progress on the business prior to their involvement? It's an important question in my mind, because a cofounder typically receives far more equity than virtually anyone else that becomes involved with the business after it…
It would disqualify nearly all cofounders of famous startups if they had to form the company before one of them made progress on the idea. For example: Steve Wozniak built the original Apple I attending Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Steve Jobs saw the prototype, realized it would be huge, and then talked Woz into founding a business around it. Larry Page had started Google as a doctoral research project to downloa…
>You definitely do want to vet your cofounders for trustworthiness and have some idea whether they're interested in founding a company with you or whether they just want your idea.
This advice would have been handy for the Winkelvoss twins, who hired Zuckerberg to build their social network project. Instead he secretly held their project back while building his own version, including their ideas. The rest, as they say, is his story.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#683Hello 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! [1] http://500mexicocity.com/
Silicon Valley is very open to risk-taking Mexicans willing to do the program in Mountain View.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, if anything it's higher. I think the median age increase has more to do with us funding companies in different spaces that require more experience. If you're starting an Internet company, I'm more convinced than ever that you don't need to finish college.
> If you're starting an Internet company, I'm more convinced than ever that you don't need to finish college. For your typical web startup you probably don't need college to learn the technology or the design patterns. But there are certain areas of social science that can be hard to pick up on your own because they are basically oral traditions, and there isn't really an obvious list of books to get on Amazon or wha…
In social sciences, the stuff you learn in formal education is less useful. I think the example should be in hard sciences, for example, if you want to start a company building quantum computers, a PhD in physics would be very helpful.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a pretty strong feminist, and agree that a comparison to ISIS is far off base. Nevertheless, I believe that one reason for the backlash against feminism is the perception that feminists are spiteful and would rather argue against straw men and make ad hominem attacks than actually argue their point of view. Actually, I've found that most feminists are surprisingly patient and eager to explain their point of view…
No. I will not back down from calling spades spades because I represent no group, only speak for myself, and I am under no obligation to alter my views or politicize my actions because of vague backlash reasons (you interestingly avoided telling me why you were urging me throughout that entire comment, if you read carefully). You might have identified a box into which to label and place me, but I assure you that I re…
Please stop.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#686Hi Sam, Does YC take any position on founders in a long-term, personal relationship, e.g. married? Has YC funded companies with such founders? If so, can you say anything meaningful about these company's success or failure? Note: I'm specifically thinking of companies with two founders.
We have funded many companies where cofounders are married or cofounders are dating. The fact that they are married / dating doesn't generally impact our decision. The same things apply that we look for in any founding team - ability to get stuff done, determination, drive....
Any data on whether founders with this type of relationship have a lower, the same, or higher probability of having founder disputes that destroy the company?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#687Would 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.
Yes! Please! Georgia Tech is a fantastic, underrated school with extremely hardworking, determined students.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#688Y Combinator? Why not Altmanator?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#689Do you accept applications from Pakistan?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When you work at a startup, you're acting like an investor but investing your time instead of your money. True, except: (a) An employee can probably only work for one startup at a time, and begins vesting after a year. That's like asking an investor to bet on at most 1 company per year. (b) Employers tend to give substantially less detailed information about their business, financials, etc to prospective employees…
But the employee has one massive advantage to the investor: the actual ability to influence the success of the company.
Investors have a lot more control over the board than a average employee will.