The Y Combinator Database • Hacker News Board

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#11

Post by cyberferret » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

"Most photogenic"... Really??

EDIT: And here come the downvotes, so let me clarify my stance. I haven't a clue what Snappr does, or what their definition of 'photogenic' is. But here is the dictionary definition of 'photogenic':

    (adjective) (especially of a person) looking attractive in photographs or on film.

So my impression was that this metric was to do with how attractive perhaps the founders were. The overall impression here is YC somehow rates the aesthetic qualities of people in order to select who is 'in'. That sort of impression can do untold damage to their brand, and I am surprised that they let this be a thing.

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#12

Post by snek » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

YC's portfolio is staggering. Whatever they use to pick who to fund, they're doing it right.

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#13

Post by vasilipupkin » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:20 AM UTC

you should make detailed ( already public, not suggesting nefarious data snooping ) info available on founder profiles. This would allow mining what kind of founders tend to do well vs average vs poorly

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#14

Post by adanto6840 » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #11

"Most photogenic"... Really?? EDIT: And here come the downvotes, so let me clarify my stance. I haven't a clue what Snappr does, or what their definition of 'photogenic' is. But here is the dictionary definition of 'photogenic': (adjective) (especially of a person) looking attractive in photographs or on film. So my impression was that this metric was to do with how attractive perhaps the founders were. The overall i…

According to the page (https://www.ycdb.co/top-companies/photo-quality-score), it is:

"Score between one and 100 based on an analysis of all photos on the company's homepage. Source: Snappr."

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#15

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

adanto6840 wrote: post #14

cyberferret wrote: post #11

"Most photogenic"... Really?? EDIT: And here come the downvotes, so let me clarify my stance. I haven't a clue what Snappr does, or what their definition of 'photogenic' is. But here is the dictionary definition of 'photogenic': (adjective) (especially of a person) looking attractive in photographs or on film. So my impression was that this metric was to do with how attractive perhaps the founders were. The overall i…

According to the page ( https://www.ycdb.co/top-companies/photo-quality-score ), it is: "Score between one and 100 based on an analysis of all photos on the company's homepage. Source: Snappr."

I wonder which one's the top scoring one!

https://www.ycdb.co/top-companies/photo-quality-score

OH BOY IT'S SNAPPR! This is probably not biased.

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#16

Post by rozenmd » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:56 AM UTC

kylelibra wrote: post #5

What's the marketing angle for Snappr here?

It's classic side-project marketing to increase brand visibility, etc

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#17

Post by technotony » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:56 AM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #15

adanto6840 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the page ( https://www.ycdb.co/top-companies/photo-quality-score ), it is: "Score between one and 100 based on an analysis of all photos on the company's homepage. Source: Snappr."

I wonder which one's the top scoring one! https://www.ycdb.co/top-companies/photo-quality-score OH BOY IT'S SNAPPR! This is probably not biased.

Of course it is. The whole site is made by them[1]. Clever marketing move!

[1] YCDB is made in San Francisco by the team at Snappr, which is a YC company (W17). Why? Because we love YC companies and discovering new ones! Edited by Matt Schiller.

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#18

Post by throwaway673874 » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:24 AM UTC

ericjang wrote: post #3

Very nice! Is the raw data publicly available? Or is it just scraped from Crunchbase?

It has become very tough to scrape crunchbase off late. I cant do any scripting around it using headless chrome. It instantly recognizes you are not a human

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#19

Post by rococode » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

Well, TIL that the ACLU was in YC W17 thanks to the "top 100 tweet count" page. I was kind of surprised by that, are there other well-established organizations that have joined YC at a (very) late stage or are they unique?

Re: The Y Combinator Database

#20

Post by hliyan » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

Looking at the top 100 funded companies: it's interesting that the majority are in the "Consumer", "Dev Tools" or "Healthcare" categories, and hardly any are in the "AI and ML" category.