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YC: Requests for Startups

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Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#191

Post by nonethewiser »

mandmandam wrote: post #164
nonethewiser wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's probably some middle ground between no defense tech whatsoever, and trillion dollar illegal wars and genocides. There is obviously middle ground. Which is why categorically condemning defense spending is indefensible. What are you referring to as genocide?

> Which is why categorically condemning defense spending is indefensible. That doesn't actually follow. > What are you referring to as genocide? Take your pick.

>> Which is why categorically condemning defense spending is indefensible.

>That doesn't actually follow.

It does. If some defense is OK, then some defense spending is OK. In order to categorically reject defense spending as the original commenter did, then you must categorically reject defense.

> Take your pick.

Of what?

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#192

Post by natdempk »

codegeek wrote: post #104

"ELIMINATING MIDDLEMEN IN HEALTHCARE" I honestly am game for this even though I have zero experience in healthcare but as a consumer, where do I start how bad it is. I would do anything to change our shitty healthcare system where there are so many middlemen b/w me and my doctor. Recent event: Went to ER because my toddler son spilled hot coffee on him (thankfully he is ok and wasn't as terrible as it could have been…

I'm also interested in this one, though I lack specific experience in the healthcare industry to understand the problems.

Does anyone have good resources to understanding the bloat of the industry as well as the regulatory constraints? I realize that the complexity here is almost infinite, but I do think you can potentially find inroads and compete along those.

I also don't think being a more efficient "middleman" is a bad thing. There are always going to be providers of services that are incentivized by making money. The key in my mind is to keep it in a respectable/realistic place for customers, as well as eliminate toil/confusion. It feels like you could get both outcomes and also align for better patient care/experience. For example everyone loves Costco, yet they still are a "middleman" between you and the goods you want.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#193

Post by gavinhoward »

dang wrote: post #185
gavinhoward wrote: post #77

I am building a company that falls under two categories (commercial Open Source and developer tools based on internal tools), but I would never take YC money for it. Because of that stake, they want an "exit" in some form, and the drive to that exit will pave the road to user-hostile software and make it the path of least resistance.

YC's idea is to optimize for helping founders. That means supporting what the founders want If they don't want to exit, YC's not going to pressure them. This works out well because it's the global optimum. YC has much more success optimizing for helping founders than it would by trying to squeeze individual lemons.

I hope that is true, and a sibling comment to yours suggests it is.

That said, that sibling comnent suggests that YC is for potential unicorns, and I don't want that either. So YC is not for me.

Though I will say nothing wrong with unicorns per se.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#194

Post by sailfast »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #25

The defense-tech one is interesting. I wholeheartedly agree that more people should be involved in the space and it is critically important -- I think the war in Ukraine clearly shows the need for the Western world to be prepared to fight for freedom and democracy -- but as far as venturebackable business models go I don't really understand how many defense tech co's will fit. Most defense firms, other than perhaps P…

I couldn’t tell if this was because of the stable revenue stream or because they care about changing things. Not sure Palantir is the best example here as they probably need a competitor already. Palantir was also funded by the intelligence community to solve a problem for them…

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#195

Post by dragonwriter »

hef19898 wrote: post #184
snowmaker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. But I don't think revenue multiple is the right metric to look at. If you just look in terms of aggregate market cap, defense companies are some of the larger companies in the world - i.e., Lockheed Martin is valued over $100B. That's a good sign that it's possible to build a big company in the space, which is all you need.

Every single defence company today is the result of decades of mergers and decades of Cold War peak defence budgets. Not even SoftBanknhas that amount of dough to repeat that. Lockheed Martin used to be Lockheed and Martin, MDD used to be McDonnel and Douglas, Northrop Gruman, well, you get it. Those companies were built, the were merged. And they are the first on the big defence budgets, and honestly also the only o…

> Lockheed Martin used to be Lockheed and Martin

Lockheed Martin was formed by the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta and Martin Marietta was formed by the merger of Martin and American-Marietta, and American-Marietta was formed by the merger of American Asphalt Paint Company and Marietta Paint and Color Company.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#196

Post by bko »

advael wrote: post #152

It's bizarre to me that Tesla gets cited as an exemplar for operating as an American manufacturer for physical goods, given that it's been the subject of numerous scandals regarding quality control of the physical components manufactured there, many of which I've found out about through this very site. If manufacturing comes back to the US in the form of more companies that operate like Tesla, I would guess that Amer…

What scandals (honest question)? Is it more than comparable companies?

I think a big problem is that modern American firms outsource practically all required expertise to suppliers so they are left with no core competency apart from marketing, lobbying and financial engineering. Its my impression that Tesla does more stuff themselves so they were quicker to innovate and experiment. But not sure if that's just their marketing and cult that leads me to believe this. But I do know that electric cars were long thought impractical and dead, and their sudden rise in popularity coincided with Tesla creating a good electric car

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#198

Post by OJFord »

webel0 wrote: post #116

(Tangentially related to, “A WAY TO END CANCER”) After seeing how my doctor iteratively ordered up different sets of tests for me over the course of a few months, I got to thinking about improving decision trees for blood testing (and maybe others). However, when I spoke to a (first year) med student about this he suggested that doctors actually don’t want something like this. I don't think I followed the thought pro…

I've had similar conversations (another one is classifying ECGs as normal or whatever variety of abnormal rhythm, for example) with my wife, who's a doctor, and it's always some combination of 'yeah, that kinda does happen' (just more manually/lower tech, or human-driven, etc. than we're imagining) and 'we don't want that' like you say.

What they do want afaict is more fundamental, should-be-so-much-easier stuff like case management software that doesn't suck, and like, a chair to sit on while using that computer.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#199

Post by jbverschoor »

mxwsn wrote: post #128
jbverschoor wrote: post #63

Small comment about the "Stable Coins": > $136b worth of stablecoins have been issued to date but the opportunity seems much more immense still. Only about seven million people have transacted with stablecoins to date, while more than half a billion live in countries with 30%+ inflation. U.S. banks hold $17b in customer deposits which are all up for grabs as well. And yet the major stablecoin issuers can be counted o…

Can SDR really be traded on demand by civilians with a smartphone or computer at any time of day anywhere in the world with internet? It doesn't seem so from a quick Google search, but I don't know. If not, it seems pretty clearly quite different from stablecoins operating on blockchains.

You can't buy them as a normal person afaik. I learned about them during some boating / radio exams. They're (also) used to pay for satellite calls at sea, which I thought was interesting.

A stablecoin (or any 'coin' for that matter) does not need a blockchain to fulfill its purpose.

The interesting parts for me are:

- It was created 2 years before the dollar officially lost the gold standard

- It's a product of the IMF

- It is seen as a reserve currency

- It's 'stable' the sense that it's a basket of currencies

- I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about this during any blockchain / crypto / stablecoin event.

I didn't look into how "stable" the coin actually has been over time. But I think it's good to look at the policies and thoughts from IMF's point of few as well as how countries deal with it. They have smart people there, so there's probably something we can learn from them.

Re: YC: Requests for Startups

#200

Post by hef19898 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #195
hef19898 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single defence company today is the result of decades of mergers and decades of Cold War peak defence budgets. Not even SoftBanknhas that amount of dough to repeat that. Lockheed Martin used to be Lockheed and Martin, MDD used to be McDonnel and Douglas, Northrop Gruman, well, you get it. Those companies were built, the were merged. And they are the first on the big defence budgets, and honestly also the only o…

> Lockheed Martin used to be Lockheed and Martin Lockheed Martin was formed by the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta and Martin Marietta was formed by the merger of Martin and American-Marietta, and American-Marietta was formed by the merger of American Asphalt Paint Company and Marietta Paint and Color Company.

Thanks! Going down the rabbit hole of defence mergers is always fun!
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