Hey Sam,
is YC helping non-tech startups such as clothing industry?
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
131–140 of 768 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#132Is it a strong criterion that applicants you admit into the program have a (clear) path to building billion-dollar companies? Or do you give more weight to solving important problems? In other words, does ROI trump problem-solving, and if so, are teams tackling niche problems at a disadvantage?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#133Sam if you are a semi technical founder (you have coded before but not recently enough to build your product) and you have to get a cofounder but have the choice between one you know and will be able to climb mountains with but has the same dilemma vs a technical cofounder/employee. Who would you choose to go with? The one you can figure it out with or the one who can basically do it for you?
The one you know.
Having a cofounder you don't know well is usually a very bad idea. It's much more important to trust someone and know they are great than to 'hire' for a specific skill.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#134Are you at all concerned that the compressed timetable leading up to Demo Day contributes to founder burnout and unhealthy lifestyles? How do you know the program isn't inadvertently damaging some of its participants?
preparations for any important event or presentations often lead to feeling exhausted, scared, uncertain... We passed through out day but we had Coachademy, on line coaching app! Professionals can help you to do your best and #begreat. Try it!
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#135How would you get enough initial users for a collaborative learning tool that requires multiple users to be able to offer value?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#136I've submitted my application as a single founder - not because I want it that way but because none of my friends have the freedom for a venture.
Does YC do match making (if they see a good fit) or this something you need to specifically request on the application?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#137What do you see as the typical structure of a founding team of hardware companies?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#138Hey Sam, semi technical question here. NIPS, ran an experiments a few years ago where for 10% of the papers they had two completely independent teams of reviewers assess papers and score them - the agreement between the teams was very low: http://blog.mrtz.org/2014/12/15/the-nips-experiment.html (barely better than chance, actually).
Would you consider doing something similar for YC? Obviously, you already have multiple people looking at websites/applications, but I'd be really curious to see what the agreement is like - and you have some absolutely exception AI/data scientists people at openAI who could crunch all the numbers.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#139Did you really get scurvy when you were in YC?
I never got tested but I think so. I had extreme lethargy, sore legs, and bleeding gums that got a better in a few hours after having a bunch of orange juice.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#140I don't live in the Bay Area, so I don't have many connections within the YC network. How big of a role do referrals play in the application process?