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Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

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Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#131

Post by crispytx »

olfactory wrote: post #92

Early YC: Small, gets disproportionate number of wins. Develops top tier reputation. Later YC: Expands significantly due to the added prestige, and now performs much closer to the mean. Today: Sam says that "too many YC companies are getting funded". Is this fundamentally different from a mutual fund that yields 25% above market for a few years in a row and then performs closer to the mean for the following decade? I…

I don't know. Coinbase is sure looking like another hit. I think crypto is a bubble, but you can't deny that they picked another big winner as recently as 2012. And they had Instacart in that same S12 class as well.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#132

Post by [deleted] »

olfactory wrote: post #92

Early YC: Small, gets disproportionate number of wins. Develops top tier reputation. Later YC: Expands significantly due to the added prestige, and now performs much closer to the mean. Today: Sam says that "too many YC companies are getting funded". Is this fundamentally different from a mutual fund that yields 25% above market for a few years in a row and then performs closer to the mean for the following decade? I…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#133

Post by ves »

isuckatcoding wrote: post #90
usaar333 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much bay area real estate shortages drive this; I suspect little. 1. It's unclear how much additional housing will drop prices. There's enormous demand and denser housing costs more to build per square foot. Realistically, we're talking 10 to 20% drops as upper bounds of cuts (think Seattle costs) 2. [Edited to clarify price driving] These companies have decided to be in the bay area for some reason…

Thing is though it’s not that easy to get a big4 job. It takes several weeks or even months to land those competitive roles whereas startups are much easier. Not all of us have the talent to land that big4.

“Good” startups are definitely much harder to recruit for than big4 — there’s a lot of variance in startup engineering quality.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#134

Post by buro9 »

jtmarmon wrote: post #109
cjf4 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive? I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were…

When you're shooting for one company to return 100x your investment per fund, a 2x difference in cost to get the best possible environment for the company you're funding is worth it.

One wouldn't need a 100x if one hadn't over-funded all the bad bets.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#135

Post by speedplane »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #52
jpao79 wrote: post #10

Was just thinking the other day, it'd be super interesting if YC ran some YC Equity/YC UBI experiments within its own network. Basically in joining YC, each YC member would be granted a percentage of YC's 7% stake in all of the YC companies which would reduce their need to fundraise. In theory, YC members should all be highly motivated achievers and use that percentage stake to move their diverse set of businesses fo…

Wow imagine a UBI concept that has a barrier to entry dependent on one's merit and qualifications and stipulates that the recipient contributes a certain number of hours per week to a pursuit that generates a positive economic input. This is a brilliant idea, if only somebody had come up with this earlier.

How about instead of UBI we just get free healthcare. That'll accomplish 90% of what UBI seeks to accomplish.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#136

Post by jopsen »

buro9 wrote: post #134
jtmarmon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're shooting for one company to return 100x your investment per fund, a 2x difference in cost to get the best possible environment for the company you're funding is worth it.

One wouldn't need a 100x if one hadn't over-funded all the bad bets.

And lots of bets would do fine if they didn't have to perform 100x

Note: there are lots of successful small startups that never explode..

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#137

Post by forkerenok »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #20

Maybe I'm misinterpreting but in a way it sounds like he's saying that YC sometimes (often?) bet on ideas / teams that turn out to be crap. Well, of course that's going to be true. Just they same, prestige or not, track record or not, it's also possible that not all ideas / teams were the right fit for the YC program. That is, yes within YC they were bad bets, but that's not to say things won't change once they're aw…

I think he doesn't mean only ideas, but also people behind them (founders).

And understandably they don't want to label startups on graduation.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#138

Post by mattmanser »

kovek wrote: post #120
cjf4 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this leads to a question about the Bay Area centric techno-spehere: at what point do the prices become so high that companies/ecosystems in other parts of the country become relatively attractive? I understand that the SV network is a real and powerful thing, but holding all else equal (indulge me), wouldn't it make the cost of startups more attractive for all stakeholders if an alternative, viable network were…

A siblung comment writes: > doing startup things I believe the network in the Bay Area is valuable. However, I don't know concrete examples of benefits that being based in the Bay Area brings. From my perspective as an upcoming newgrad, the companies in the Bay Area are great, but their location is decided by the founders/stockholders/executives. I'll try to see what are the pros for these people. Off the top of my h…

These people are on the site, let them speak for themselves.

I don't see what a clueless new grad, wildly speculating, adds to the discussion.

Especially as you say the weather first, while the real reason is probably money, money, money, money, money.

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#139

Post by katastic »

dpc59 wrote: post #107
garmaine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer a VC that doesn’t inject a political agenda.

Not having a political agenda is having a political agenda in favor of the status quo.

Ah, the 1930'a Nazi policy. Interesting to see it come back after almost a hundred years of people realizing "You're either with us or against us" only leads to human right's abuses.

I'll be sure to grab some marshmallows to cook at the upcoming weekly burning of traitors.

I mean, you might as well apply the same logic to everything else. "Why doesn't my Calculus book push my agenda? You're either with us or helping the status quo!"--sounds insane, doesn't it?

When did it become so popular to throw away your professional objectivity, for a political agenda?

Re: Sam Altman: ‘Too many’ Y Combinator companies raise money

#140

Post by brouhahaTA »

jpao79 wrote: post #10

Was just thinking the other day, it'd be super interesting if YC ran some YC Equity/YC UBI experiments within its own network. Basically in joining YC, each YC member would be granted a percentage of YC's 7% stake in all of the YC companies which would reduce their need to fundraise. In theory, YC members should all be highly motivated achievers and use that percentage stake to move their diverse set of businesses fo…

Waaaw brouhaha, it would be layk just like UBI but for layk startups.
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