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.
It certainly feels like AI ideas are being targeted for funding.
I will never, and I repeat, never, return to working in an office. My quality of life since going fully remote is through the roof, and my employer is every bit as happy with my work now as they ever were.
Ditto. I'll retire or leave software completely before I take another in-person role with a commute.
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…
Nvidia is specifically not on the LLM train - almost all possible forms of AI can use parallel compute chips to great effect. Their own AI products like DLSS have nothing to do with LLMs
I do not believe this is correct. Sure you can run llama or something locally on a cpu or your Apple arm but it’s not even close to the speed of running on a Nvidia card.
Do you think nvidias trillion dollar valuation is because entire governments are buying Nvidia cards to run stable diffusion?!
> 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…
Another analogue would be dating. It’s hard to network or build a lasting relationship with people you’ve never met in person.
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.
This is my hypothesis too. I participated in YC S15. We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in person. That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to…
YC would have me leave my family behind for an extended period of time. The unspoken YC mantra is that startups are for the young, relatively well off, and unattached. The fact that many accelerators globally follow the YC template means that this particular type of route to learning and launching are closed to many people.
So yeah, it isn’t possible for many, if not most people. I’m not a fan of the model.
Having a family or a house or a dog simply means you are not hardcore enough , woo.
It's just 3 months. Before cellphones went mainstream, most people used to travel and simply disappear from their families for years. This need to be in constant communication with everyone back home is a phenomenon that just started in the 2000s
> It's just 3 months.
This is an incredibly long time to be away from your family for many people.
> Before cellphones went mainstream.
Yeah, and before we had antibiotics people would die from simple infections, that doesn’t mean we should “rough it out” or somesuch nonsense.
> Why not? Is this a serious question? For one thing, every founder will obviously know whether they are in-person or not, so it's not even possible to do a single-blind study.
My point is there are other statistical techniques, none of which seems to be utilized against #vibes let's go #RTO
I think it's always going to be an emotional/tribal thing. Some people are wired more socially and get value from the bustle and serendipity of an office, some people prefer to be more alone in their comfort zone.
What do you have in mind for a quantitative assessment?
That seems to list a bunch of destroyers and other vessels, but not "battleships". Probably the tweeter was just using that term colloquially, like "ship of war", rather than as a classification of size and function.
Ah, you all are correct. Thanks for the correction, will use the correct term going forward.
This is my hypothesis too. I participated in YC S15. We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in person. That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to…
YC would have me leave my family behind for an extended period of time. The unspoken YC mantra is that startups are for the young, relatively well off, and unattached. The fact that many accelerators globally follow the YC template means that this particular type of route to learning and launching are closed to many people. So yeah, it isn’t possible for many, if not most people. I’m not a fan of the model.
I mean, we all make choices and sacrifices. Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything, and I think it's reasonable that starting a startup a la YC requires a lot of commitment (that's their model and principles, there's plenty of other opportunities out there). Being an astronaut is closed off to a lot of people because they didn't fully commit themselves to it, that's just how it goes.
YC would have me leave my family behind for an extended period of time. The unspoken YC mantra is that startups are for the young, relatively well off, and unattached. The fact that many accelerators globally follow the YC template means that this particular type of route to learning and launching are closed to many people. So yeah, it isn’t possible for many, if not most people. I’m not a fan of the model.
I mean, we all make choices and sacrifices. Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything, and I think it's reasonable that starting a startup a la YC requires a lot of commitment (that's their model and principles, there's plenty of other opportunities out there). Being an astronaut is closed off to a lot of people because they di…
> Having a family is a serious commitment. There's a limited amount of time in everyone's day, you can't commit yourself to everything
Comparing “move to another city (or country) for three months” with “there is a limited amount of time in everyone’s day” is a rather disingenuous way to frame the discussion. You make it sound like it _must_ be a zero-sum game when it doesn’t have to be.
The YC (and by extension, all YC-like) model comes across more as a system of selection and control for a specific demographic that has little to do with potential for success.