Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? • Hacker News Board

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#21

Post by kunle » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 1:21 PM UTC

> I think the problem is rooted in the business model that seems to be preached by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment over income, and exit as quickly as possible.

This isn't the model preached by YCombinator at all. It actually literally runs counter to the model preached by YCombinator. YC is 7 years old, and has approached building companies with pragmatism; it's definitely the case that many startups will fail, a some will exit quickly, and a select few will last long enough and be strong enough to be IPOs, and then even fewer will last long enough as public, independent companies (Google is 13, Microsoft and Apple are both older than 20 years) to try doing things in house like building autonomous, self driving cars, or space rockets.YC is well aware of this dynamic, but the key thing this post misses is: creating a company that lasts, or being a founder well resourced enough to fight again, is a crucial part of being able to build space rockets. You have to be there. So with that in mind the model YC ACTUALLY preaches is more like:

"Talk to users, write code, build a great product, that makes money, and you wont need investors. If you do this, you just might last long enough and be strong enough to build space rockets."

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#22

Post by lgieron » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 1:28 PM UTC

hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

> They didn't care about the money, they didn't care about the allure, they didn't care about the status

Isn't that a romantization? How do we know they didn't love tech AND wanted to become rich at the same time?

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#23

Post by microtonal » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 1:31 PM UTC

JVIDEL wrote: post #11

Both Apple and Microsoft started at a time when personal computers barely existed and thus a couple of guys with very little capital could build a computer kit or code a blackjack game in a day. One key difference its revenue: Allen often mentions how any piece of code brought money to the company, simple apps that are 100% free today would have been sold for tens of millions back then. Same with hardware, which is w…

Were in they right place at the right time, or did they mold the future to such an extreme, that in hindsight it seems as if they were in the right place at the right time?

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#24

Post by shrikant » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 1:46 PM UTC

onlyup wrote: post #13

JVIDEL wrote: post #11

Both Apple and Microsoft started at a time when personal computers barely existed and thus a couple of guys with very little capital could build a computer kit or code a blackjack game in a day. One key difference its revenue: Allen often mentions how any piece of code brought money to the company, simple apps that are 100% free today would have been sold for tens of millions back then. Same with hardware, which is w…

> both companies were in the right place at the right time When looking back on a very successful company, it seems they were all in the right place at the right time. Adding to Microsoft and Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#25

Post by wissler » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 1:52 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #18

"Is the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates filling in Y Combinator's application form right now, or are they taking the independent route?" YC can reproduce the career arc of Steve Jobs, but not Bill Gates. Until the IPO Microsoft didn't sell stock to outside investors in significant quantities. By essentially bootstrapping, Gates and Allen were able to bring Ballmer on board with 8% equity at a point when outside investo…

But Jobs had to be lucky enough for Apple to nearly go bankrupt so they would entertain having him return and turn them around. This cosmically lucky event is not very reproducible.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#26

Post by dpritchett » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 2:00 PM UTC

hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

> I think YC supports the companies that shoot for the moon, but people aren't willing to take the risk and say no to acquisitions of $20-$100m because that is the short term business model of today and people just want to take their $5m and show off.

A more charitable take: A founder with a few grand in the bank is doing a high wire act without a safety net. A respected repeat founder who's already banked a few million can let go of most concerns for safety and family and focus on changing the world or self-actualization or whatever you want to call it.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#27

Post by wissler » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 2:01 PM UTC

sparknlaunch wrote: post #12

Difficult hypothetical but Jobs was a control freak. Hard to see him going though the motions of an incubator or accelerator.

"Ferociously independent" might be a more accurate characterization than "control freak." And you're right, I don't see Jobs submitting himself to being led around by mentors.

On the other hand, he didn't have to deal with the much more complicated legal environment that we have now, which includes patent suits left and right whenever there's big stakes involved. But on the other other hand, perhaps there's no good way to navigate these new problems anyway.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#28

Post by kalininalex » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 2:06 PM UTC

wissler wrote: post #25

brudgers wrote: post #18

"Is the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates filling in Y Combinator's application form right now, or are they taking the independent route?" YC can reproduce the career arc of Steve Jobs, but not Bill Gates. Until the IPO Microsoft didn't sell stock to outside investors in significant quantities. By essentially bootstrapping, Gates and Allen were able to bring Ballmer on board with 8% equity at a point when outside investo…

But Jobs had to be lucky enough for Apple to nearly go bankrupt so they would entertain having him return and turn them around. This cosmically lucky event is not very reproducible.

After Apple, Jobs didn't sit on his hands, but went on to found two companies - Pixar and NEXT. Pixar alone would have made him famous, again. And, NEXT assured his return to Apple, because of Apple's failure to innovate in early 90s and the need of something, anything to restart its OS line. NEXT and Jobs were their best bets.

Even without Apple Jobs would have accomplished many things. That's just the kind of person he was. So, luck has nothing to do with this.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#29

Post by ezequiel-garzon » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 2:10 PM UTC

hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

"YC would not be around if Apple wasn't started when it was"

How did you draw that conclusion?

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#30

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #29

hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

"YC would not be around if Apple wasn't started when it was" How did you draw that conclusion?

I'm guessing they are making an assumption that without Apple personal computers would never have take off and we would still be stuck in mainframe hell.