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Ways YC has changed in the last year

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Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#151

Post by yuvadam »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

Bitcoin hash rate is steadily growing no matter which time frame you look at [1], what do you mean by "craze"?

[1] - https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/hash-rate

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#152

Post by no_wizard »

bsder wrote: post #53
mentos wrote: post #26

Would have liked to read why in person is better. I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment for everyone involved.

The primary (maybe only?) value of YC is the networking. Networking is fundamentally an in-person thing. The remote-only people can whine all they want, but that is simply an immutable fact. Building a startup requires most of your time on non-coding tasks.

They don’t have to be. This is all about setup.

It’s harder to do because we aren’t used to it but I attended a really well done Zoom mixer in 2021 that was absolutely amazing and didn’t great job. It almost felt like I was in person honestly.

People aren’t used to changing their norms so quickly. This is what the real issue is

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#153

Post by tayo42 »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #27
Izikiel43 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what you are saying is buy calls for Nvidia

Quite possibly; I'm not sure why calls would be better than straight-up buying the stock, but I am certain that Nvidia is going to have a pretty good time of the LLM hype. Nvidia seem to me to have been consistently competent in improving their product lines. Perhaps my only criticism would be of their artificial hampering of some of their products, which they do in order to appease certain PC gamers by excluding the…

Don't calls increase potential gains through leverage? With the usual high risk downside of the option ending up worthless.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#154

Post by jmye »

eropple wrote: post #88
jmye wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement. For other problems? Sure, slack and zoom are perfectly adequate to preferable.

> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement. People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction manner.

I really disagree. Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company had been willing to give the team better tools it might have worked better? I still think there’s something irreplaceable about standing around the board in person to discuss/draw. Even the hovering pencil/cursor stuff just doesn’t work as well, IMO, as standing there and pointing at things/connections.

I’m certainly not going to make my team move to my city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting together a few times a year can allow for solving some tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#155

Post by jmye »

xwdv wrote: post #121
jmye wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement. For other problems? Sure, slack and zoom are perfectly adequate to preferable.

We don’t have “whiteboard” type problems anymore, past a certain level of experience. Are you a junior?

Believe it or not, I may work on different problems and in different areas than you do.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#156

Post by eropple »

jmye wrote: post #154
eropple wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement. People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction manner.

I really disagree. Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company had been willing to give the team better tools it might have worked better? I still think there’s something irreplaceable about standing around the board in person to discuss/draw. Even the hovering pencil/cursor stuff just doesn’t work as well, IMO, as standing there and pointing at things/connections. I’m certainly not going to make my team move…

> Figjam is mildly ok, though I suppose if my company had been willing to give the team better tools it might have worked better?

I think FigJam is pretty bad with a mouse and keyboard, honestly. It wasn't until I started using it with an iPad that it made sense to me and it wasn't until I got other people doing it that it was actually any good at all. It also suffers if you have the sort of group that needs a facilitator for these kinds of processes--I had a PM who had formerly been at Figma and their process for trying to get people to use it at the new job hurt me physically.

(The funny thing is, while I do like FigJam I don't like Figma at all; I am an Illustrator man and will be until I blow away like dust in the wind.)

> I’m certainly not going to make my team move to my city and rent an office for those meetings, but getting together a few times a year can allow for solving some tough/intractable problems much more easily/efficiently.

I agree with this, FWIW, but not for the problem-solving aspect at a whiteboard. I use it for the sticky, annoying people-y problems where you do lose something over a teleconference connection when dealing with most people. (Some folks I've worked with, like me, have an on-camera background and can project effectively over teleconferences; most can't.)

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#157

Post by RestlessMind »

snowmaker wrote: post #147
neilv wrote: post #30

> We've now tried every point on the spectrum: fully remote, hybrid and fully in-person. So now we don't have to worry if we're being luddites: in-person YC just really is the best. How was this determined to be best? (Obviously, they haven't controlled for variables like the switch to 4 smaller batches, and the high percentage of startups all doing one exciting thing (AI). And do they realize the costs. And is it be…

A lot of the comments in here are about the debate on whether companies should be remote or in-person. That's an important debate but orthogonal to what I wrote. The YC batch is not a company. It doesn't really have a close analogue, but if you forced me to choose, I'd say that doing YC is more similar to going to college than working at a company. And as all we all know, while many companies are staying fully remote…

Agreed with most of what you say, except:

> YC is more similar to going to college than working at a company.

The 3 ways you mentioned are also critical for a successful company.

1. Strong connections: you want to make strong connections in your company. That is what your network is and those connections help you in countless ways like referrals, job search or mentorships.

2. A company with "tougher, savvier, and more formidable" employees can wipe the competition against a company who doesn't have this kind of workforce. If zoom didn't work for YC to foster this, then why do you think it will do the trick for companies?

3. More fun - I really prefer a workplace which is fun than the one which is not. A fun workplace also helps with stronger connections with colleagues (#1).

My actual experience also aligns with these observations. In-person workplaces really produced stronger connections, more fun and better/stronger teams. Fully remote companies simply never had that level of camaraderie.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#158

Post by hadlock »

molly0 wrote: post #106

The way Twitter has changed in the last year is so I can no longer read threads since I don’t have an account.

Is that what happened? I was wondering where the rest of the blog post was. I am periodically logged into twitter on my phone but rarely on desktop

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#159

Post by baobabKoodaa »

yuvadam wrote: post #151
seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

Bitcoin hash rate is steadily growing no matter which time frame you look at [1], what do you mean by "craze"? [1] - https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/hash-rate

I think they meant the GPU mining craze around 2017, which was unrelated to Bitcoin.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#160

Post by alex_lav »

quadcore wrote: post #108
seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

Friendly reminder: the strategy here is to invest in the founders, not the ideas. So great founders right now create AI startups. So either AI solves problems or they arent great founders.

> So either AI solves problems or they arent great founders.

So being wrong one time means you're not a great founder?

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