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YC Changes

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Changes

#131

Post by Chronic9q »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #92
jonnycowboy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say: automation & AI: - automated cities & robotic workers - HARC working on the interfaces for the "workers" - basic income to replace minimum wage earners' incomes Would love to work on this path!

Earnest question: do you believe that full automation and mass displacement of workers, combined with a basic income will lead to anything resembling a decent quality of life for most? Because I want to believe it, but all contemporary evidence points to an outcome that includes an even more extreme stratification of wealth and masses of struggling, impoverished people.

This is correct. Those at the top, like myself, will continue to develop AI and automation tools while doing our best to keep workers from "becoming smart" through low wages/benefits/minimally satisfying regulations. You wouldn't want your maid revolting against you, now would you?

Call me morally corrupt if you want, but there will always be morally corrupt people in the world whether we like it or not.

Re: YC Changes

#132

Post by mildbow »

sama wrote: post #127
mildbow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Competence is charismatic in itself, though not something that translates onto video.

Do you have open office hours? I'd love to get a feel for how you think.

Re: YC Changes

#133

Post by crdb »

pb wrote: post #75
minimaxir wrote: post #4

What didn't work with the Fellowship, exactly? In light of the dissolution, how did the winners of the Apply HN competition ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440627 ) work with the most recent Fellowship class?

Fellowship worked really well for the most part, but our real goal is to 10x or 100x the number of startups that we help, and Fellowship in it's current form couldn't easily do that. The MOOC is essentially Fellowship 2.0 -- we're taking what we learned from Fellowship and then opening it up to the whole world so that anyone can participate.

> our real goal is to 10x or 100x the number of startups that we help, and Fellowship in it's current form couldn't easily do that

Do you account for the effects you have on the rest of the community when calculating your impact?

For example, I suspect YC is strongly responsible for the rise of "low amounts of equity without control for a small amount of funding" seed rounds, and for the existence of accelerators, in both cases globally.

The Fellowship model of investing tiny amounts - like "sparks", lighting a fire - into an enormous number of teams with as little friction as possible was the next logical step and I was looking forward to Fellowship copies sprouting all over the world.

Unfortunately by effectively ending the program you might be sending a signal to global investors not to try it, that YC Core is the deal size floor that works...

Re: YC Changes

#134

Post by kxd »

hueving wrote: post #123
brianchesky wrote: post #116

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…

As I understand it, the major boom for airbnb was the switch to renting out entire homes. Were you under the guidance of YC during that time?

FWIW, there's some good discussion around this in Sam Altman's interview with Jessica Livingston (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFOC-cgIWaY).

Re: YC Changes

#135

Post by mathattack »

ncd wrote: post #14

Michael was one of our group partners during S16, and I cannot think of a person better suited for this position than him. He consistently demonstrated the ability to cut through all of the nonsense founders tried to use to defend their actions (ourselves included) and delivered fantastic insights into our businesses to which we were blinded. For me, the group partners were the primary value delivered by YC during th…

the group partners were the primary value delivered by YC during the program

Interesting insight. The hype is around the money and demo day, but it seems like insight from great partners is the true differentiator for YC.

Re: YC Changes

#136

Post by mathattack »

mwseibel wrote: post #103
brianliou91 wrote: post #94

I would personally seek Michael's advice when I was in the S15 batch because of how earnest his advice was. Even for companies outside his group you could really tell the effort he would give to provide quality guidance. One example of how much Michael cares was in the days before our demo day, I was the first to come in at 8AM and Michael literally had slept on the couch having stayed up all night providing feedback…

Thanks Brian - when you go all in on demo day prep so do we :)

Said just like my Dad. :-)

Re: YC Changes

#137

Post by gist »

27182818284 wrote: post #42
gist wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of TL;DR bothers me because the word "summary" is appropriate or even "key points". It's not common use among all groups of people (old timers for example who also could read a blog post) and it really doesn't serve any clear purpose that "summary" does not.

I try to use "summary" when I can as well. I think few people know the full history of tl;dr. When it first started appearing, it wasn't used by the author, but in response to the author (like you wrote something way too long winded I'm not reading that)

Agree most probably don't know the history. TL;DR is a good example of how people can date themselves by how they communicate. They enter into something new and start to copy something that they see because they don't understand the nuance. Then the nuance disappears because of that new usage.

In reverse (with much older people) we have a few customers who pay by check and send a cover letter as well attached to the check (a formal holdover from olden times). Attaching the invoice is sufficient obviously.

Re: YC Changes

#138

Post by erikpukinskis »

sctb wrote: post #114
erikpukinskis wrote: post #37

I realize it's a joke, but it also seems quite unlikely to be true. To me, this is the biggest weakness of YC as an organization: a pernicious belief that what applies within their community applies to all communities. I have to wonder what kind of world Graham sees, if it's one in which all communities would welcome a person like Sam as leader. No disrespect to Sam and his substantial leadership qualities. Edit: It'…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12490792 and marked it off-topic.

Can you help me understand what is off topic about it? It's a discussion of PG and SamA and their management philosophy on a subthread about what PG thinks about SamA on a thread about SamA's new role at YC?

I would understand if you removed the whole toplevel thread, or lower threads about white cannibalism, but it seems strange that you removed mine.

Re: YC Changes

#139

Post by anonymoose7191 »

pb wrote: post #95
anonymoose7191 wrote: post #60

I expect to be downvoted but my YC interview with Michael a couple summers back left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not really sure he asked more than "how is this a billion dollar company?" multiple times during the 10 minutes. I'm not sure why YC would pay $1k to fly us to Mountain View if that question was that important and wasn't already answered by our application. Hope that was just a fluke though... Good luck Y…

It's very difficult to truly evaluate a business without talking to the founders. Sometimes a bad sounding business (such as air mattress rentals) will turn out to be a really great business (such as AirBnb). That said, I'm sorry you had a bad experience. We're working on better ways to pre-screen startups before interviews so we can hopefully avoid as much unnecessary travel as possible.

Thanks paul. I should elaborate: the other partners were asking other and varied questions.

The experience was really not bad except that the persistence and insistence of that question made it feel like an episode of Shark Tank.

Maybe we were just bitter realists but the only answer to that question is "get really lucky."

Re: YC Changes

#140

Post by jaypaulynice »

Does this change mean YCombinator is going to invest in primarily mature startups?

It feels like the research and mooc will boost early stage startups to eventually apply to the YC core program. Is that the goal?

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