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Yes.[1] [1]: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/europes-hypocritical-h...
Awesome. Thanks for the link. Strangely, someone downvoted my question. It's unfortunate that some try to downplay or hide uncomfortable historical truths.
One question does YC == Y Combinator? In the TLDR, YC Core is renamed to "YC", and YC Group now consists of Y Combinator, YC Continuity, YC Research and the new YC MOOC. But I wasn't 100% clear whether the group Michael Seibel is the CEO of "YC" is the same as the component in the YC Group referred to as "Y Combinator". It would have been a bit more clear (to me) if the group had been consistently referred to as "YC"…
One evening in early 2008, I got the opportunity to meet Michael at an Austin hotel during SXSW. I pitched him on the idea for Airbnb, and he took us under his wing. For the rest of the year, we would visit his office every Friday night for hours on end. Each session, Joe and I would demo our latest site and report on our progress. Michael taught me about fundraising, product growth, and building the basics of a star…
Missed naming opportunity: Y Combinator Combinator
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RE: "We have no connection to most of the companies we fund." This certainly isn't the perception on my part - the flood of posts from previous YC companies who talk about how they had help from other YC companies to polish their pitch makes it seem like current YC companies are definitively connected to previous YC companies.
The handful of blog posts you see here on HN are not representative of the whole batch. The majority of companies that we fund have zero alumni connections. To me, this is actually one of the most important features of YC: the application process is completely open and we fund people from around the world regardless of background. Having graduated from college in Ohio in the 90s I moved here with zero connections and…
I am from India.
PG wasnt joking when he said: "You could parachute [Sam] into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king." - PG 5.5 years ago[1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/fundraising.html
TBH, this is why I scrutinize sama. to learn. And, I haven't been able to discern his brand of magic. Obviously he's figured out how to get a few powerful people to bet on him. But, he doesn't seem to have any outward success. From his videos, he doesn't seem to be classically charismatic. So, what has he figured out? How is he a kingmaker?
I am a pretty good investor.
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TBH, this is why I scrutinize sama. to learn. And, I haven't been able to discern his brand of magic. Obviously he's figured out how to get a few powerful people to bet on him. But, he doesn't seem to have any outward success. From his videos, he doesn't seem to be classically charismatic. So, what has he figured out? How is he a kingmaker?
I am definitely not charismatic. I am a pretty good investor.
Take extremely complicated topics and succinctly and concisely boil it down to its fundamentals and present that in an easy-to-understand manner. Aka cut out the bullshit.
Thoughts on whether you agree/disagree?
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The handful of blog posts you see here on HN are not representative of the whole batch. The majority of companies that we fund have zero alumni connections. To me, this is actually one of the most important features of YC: the application process is completely open and we fund people from around the world regardless of background. Having graduated from college in Ohio in the 90s I moved here with zero connections and…
An awesome feature certainly. I appreciate the access (and the free teaching we're getting more of soon) :) While I can't dictate what orgs do, it'd be helpful to see some "we applied with zero connections and got in on our strength alone" posts to balance it out.
We were also unusual because we are probably the first Indian YC startup with on-ground operations. We went through 3 rounds of YC interviews (not just the one!) .. because the interviewers had to learn about India. Our first interviewer was mwseibel !
What impressed me was that YC learned about India, invested in us and supported us through a pivot back in India. Big shout out to Aaron Harris, who is probably the resident Asia expert now [1]