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Changes at YC

ycombinator.com

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Re: Changes at YC

#231

Post by stonogo »

loeg wrote: post #95
voz_ wrote: post #46

> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc

"Exonerative tense," "mistakes were made," etc. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/past_exonerative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_were_made https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...

Submitted for inclusion: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-...

Re: Changes at YC

#232

Post by swyx »

tabbott wrote: post #229

I wish there were some publicly available numbers to analyze here, but it seems likely that YC's late stage funds have lost a lot of money (on paper) doing late-stage investments at sky-high valuations over the years leading up to 2022 that are now down significantly as a result of the current startup downturn. Folks who are thinking about these YC changes as a layoff are missing the point -- YC is exiting what had b…

and yet Anu Hariharan and Ali Rowghani seem to be leaving to start a new fund. no failures in VC, just pre-success :)

Re: Changes at YC

#233

Post by slt2021 »

whitemary wrote: post #213
gus_massa wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to search it and found this: " Soviet Union (93,548) > Employment security, termination of employment (955) " https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_is... > A dismissed worker shall receive a severance indemnity equal to the average monthly wage. [...] > In case of restructuring or liquidation of the enterprise, the worker while seeking employment, retains his or her average monthly wage for…

What does it say about families losing their sustenance? I am intentional in my phrasing. I care about people, not "jobs".

It shows that you have never lived in soviet union and happily eat communist fairy tales.

Soviet Workers were exploited and underpaid by state, there was no private property and almost no private sector.

Soviet Union employed highly educated PhD rocket scientists and paid everyone minimum wage, because there was no alternative.

Literally every scientist family had to grow their own potatoes and veggies at home/dachas in order to survive.

Can you imagine Harvard dean growing potatoes just to survive in cold winter months?

Cars were not available, you had to wait for 7 years to be allocated a slot to purchase a vehicle.

Almost no selection of consumer products, everything was DIY, because the only good thing Soviet State was capable of - is building tanks and rockets (that are currently being destroyed by Ukraine Armed Forces)

Re: Changes at YC

#234

Post by ftxbro »

Kwpolska wrote: post #151
ftxbro wrote: post #65

[flagged]

That's still too long and flowery. You probably know what YC is. We were recently doing late-stage investing, but we're mostly giving up on that now. We're firing 17 people who were involved in late-stage investing. You won't notice their disappearance. There, four sentences, and no AI involved.

Oh they flagged my post. Does that mean no one can see it anymore? Anyway I was curious how GPT expands your four brutally raw sentences into a press release (everything it made is fake including a fake quote):

Y Combinator Announces Changes in Late-Stage Investing and Workforce

Mountain View, CA - Y Combinator, the renowned startup accelerator, announced today that it will be shifting its focus away from late-stage investing. As part of this strategic pivot, the company will be letting go of 17 employees who were involved in late-stage investing.

This decision comes after a thorough review of YC's investment strategy and long-term goals. While late-stage investing has been a successful part of the company's portfolio, YC has decided to double down on its core mission of helping early-stage startups grow and succeed.

"We are grateful for the contributions of our late-stage investing team, but we believe that this change will allow us to better serve our early-stage companies and continue to drive innovation in the startup ecosystem," said YC President, Sam Altman.

The 17 affected employees have been notified and will be provided with severance packages and support during their transition. YC remains committed to its mission of supporting and investing in the most promising startups and looks forward to continuing to work with entrepreneurs from all over the world.

For more information, please contact Y Combinator's media relations team at press@ycombinator.com.

###

Re: Changes at YC

#235

Post by maximinus_thrax »

300bps wrote: post #217
Kwpolska wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death is inevitable, unexpected, unplanned, usually caused by things beyond human control. Layoffs are a planned thing explicitly done by one human to another in order to increase corporate profits.

Layoffs are often a choice between letting a small percentage go or causing the entire company to go out of business.

Do you have some data to back that up? I'm not sure if a small percentage of employees are so expensive as to be the tipping point for a company to go out of business.

Re: Changes at YC

#237

Post by ak_111 »

voz_ wrote: post #46

> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc

This comment comes across as a silly nitpick given the sober content of the post, but I think it is completely fair given Paul Graham's many writings and tweets on the virtues of writing clearly and his hatred of what I call corporatese.

Re: Changes at YC

#238

Post by _puk »

annexrichmond wrote: post #140
voz_ wrote: post #46

> Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today. Never allow corporations to speak in passive, weak, blameless terms. Use direct, honest, language, and force them to do the same. "Seventeen of our teammates are impacted today." - > "We laid off 17 employees today" "I was impacted by layoffs" -> "Google laid me off" etc

Never mind " I was impacted by layoffs", I often see " my position was impacted by layoffs"

In many places, without at will employment, you can't lay an individual off, but actually have to make the position redundant.

Re: Changes at YC

#239

Post by Arrath »

rvnx wrote: post #100
bink wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fired -> Let go -> Laid off -> Impacted I'll be curious to see what comes next.

"Let go" is the worst, it implies "I let you go" -> "I allow you to leave" which is the ultimate humiliation when you are getting fired

I think of it more like the protagonist (or antagonist, one could argue) of a movie holding on to the hand of someone (employee) about to fall off of a cliff (the descent, ultimately, to poverty and homelessness) just to make the metaphor as vivid as possible.

Re: Changes at YC

#240

Post by bombcar »

hk__2 wrote: post #208
zamnos wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one circulating where the newspaper headline stated that "A man with no active warrants was shot by police." Which is just about the most nefarious way to say "an innocent man was shot by police".

Isn’t it different? IANAL but having an active warrant issued for you doesn’t really have anything to do with you being guilty or innocent. It just means the police must conduct you to the juge, either because you’re a suspect or (in some countries) a witness. Edit: I guess this is this story: https://www.actionnews5.com/story/35967817/officers-kill-man...

"A man with no active warrants issued" also perfectly describes every single one of the 9/11 hijackers, but that wouldn't equate out to "innocent" either.
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