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Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

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Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#241

Post by chronic92957 »

throw14082020 wrote: post #236
chronic9304 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many times did the author apply and get rejected from YC? Author is not wrong. This “YC is actually a negative signal” sentiment started back in 2018-2019. The “actual” good entrepreneurs (e.g., the folks you expect from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley) stopped applying to YC a while back. There are different signaling mechanisms in 2024, which I won’t reveal here, because the “plebs” will turn it into shit, j…

You posting "better" signalling mechanisms (in your opinion) will not be the end of them... People don't do things because you think they're good. They'll find them by looking and copying existing companies' approaches. You have failed to mention anything except to say approximately "YC sucks and I have something better but I don't want to share"

> You posting "better" signalling mechanisms (in your opinion) will not be the end of them...

Of course it will be the end. You think leetcode mediums are enough to land a FANG job in 2024? No. But in 2015, they were.

The top-tier are always adapting. Always one step ahead of the rest. Formula 1, top 5% dating profiles, mega churches, olympic athletes, cartel drug smugglers, private elementary schools, and elite entrepreneurs, all the same.

Me posting the “secrets” of 2024 make my life more difficult, because I actively use them. Sure, I’ll adapt once the game changes. But I’ll “rest and vest” until then, right?

> You have failed to mention anything except to say approximately "YC sucks and I have something better but I don't want to share"

I am not obligated to help others. Don’t like my attitude? Well then, you’re not going to like the top-tier culture.

Programmer/hacker culture used to have the positive, helpful camaraderie you are looking for. But that shit is long gone. Like I said, adapt.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#242

Post by thr0w »

nextos wrote: post #201
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … yield a big company … I assume that this sort of says it all. Everyone wants “big.” The article talks about brand curation, really. That seems to be a lost art, these days. I worked for a corporation that had one of the most powerful brands in the world (but has taken some real hits). I watched them dilute that brand, and make lots of money, but really get clobbered. They are now regrouping, and, I hope, re-estab…

> That seems to be a lost art, these days. [...] I watched them dilute that brand, and make lots of money, but really get clobbered. Maybe this is the normal lifecycle of a successful organization, unless one decides to grow more slowly? Infinite growth is what ruins most things. Scaling is hard . YC seemed to attract genuine founders, back when starting something up was not so trendy. As it became fashionable, and Y…

> Front pages were full of technical discussion back in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Content of that kind is less frequent these days.

Yeah, noticed the same trend. Reflective of the overall, as you said.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#244

Post by rsynnott »

thornewolf wrote: post #212
a1371 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the uninitiated like myself, PearAi just took the source code of continue.dev (not fork, they copy pasted) and did some clunky work on it. That was their entry to YC.

for additional uninitiatedness: one of the founders is "Frying Pan", a popular youtuber. There has been previous discussion on the fact that the cost to build software is approaching 0. If that is given, maybe "taste" is all that matters. Funding a ~productless popular youtuber is a great way to test if "taste" and "brand" is better to invest in than tech in the years to come.

> There has been previous discussion on the fact that the cost to build software is approaching 0.

People have been claiming that since COBOL came out (actually, probably before; I bet some people claimed it about _assembler_), so, er, yeah, will believe that one when I see it.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#245

Post by light_triad »

Folks always bring up the increasing number of startups in YC which I don't think is a problem. YC is a people business. There were several key changes:

- PG and Jessica 'retired' - they were the killer combo in terms of identifying talent in tech and culture.

- YC became massively successful - when it started YC was prestigious because of the startups it funded, now the startups are prestigious because of YC.

- Selection is much harder - tech & startups became mainstream unlike when the self-selection consisted of PG essay readers and niche programmers.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#246

Post by rsynnott »

humansareok1 wrote: post #13
stonethrowaway wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll have to expand on this for us plebs. To whom is it a net negative signal?

To anyone with eyes? Job seekers looking for startups to join, investors looking for places to put money, etc. I'm sorry if your company got accepted into YC, better luck next time. At least you can hang out with the founders of... 100 AI-assisted Code Editors, 'The first Travel Credit Card for Gen Z', 'Starbucks memberships for restaurants', 'a video first food delivery app, tiktok meets doordash', and 'the operatin…

> The first Travel Credit Card for Gen Z

Huh. Is this just that Fyre Festival guy’s thing, only increment the generation by one?

More generally, most of these read as parody.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#247

Post by 7e »

I don't think this is the story. The story is that YC created a cult around a startup which convinced founders to give them equity in return for nothing. Now the good founders wised up to the sweatshop/meat market/factory that YC is, they get better terms from real VCs, or they self fund.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#248

Post by kovezd »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #224
dgreensp wrote: post #106

Full disclosure, I'm a YC alum whose last start-up was acquired by Google, who applied to this batch and didn't get an interview. YC is not the stamp of quality it once was, to be sure, though it still works as social proof, because investors (especially VCs) want to invest in companies other investors like (or failing that, companies they imagine other investors would like). YC would say that they aren't trying to b…

>Original YC would not reject founders over their current product strategy and because they haven't figured out the right way to structure their business--haven't put together the "proof" that they could be on track to be a unicorn, etc. That's a VC rejection. Of course, YC gets many thousands of applications and has to reject most of them. You could say they shouldn't be criticized for trying to give a little feedba…

+1 any feedback that is not based in data, I dismiss it as anecdotal. Congratulations on your success.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#249

Post by sagarkamat »

dgreensp wrote: post #106

Full disclosure, I'm a YC alum whose last start-up was acquired by Google, who applied to this batch and didn't get an interview. YC is not the stamp of quality it once was, to be sure, though it still works as social proof, because investors (especially VCs) want to invest in companies other investors like (or failing that, companies they imagine other investors would like). YC would say that they aren't trying to b…

>Finally, I want to call out the phenomenon in the world of VC where the ability to generate hype alone is enough to make you and your investors a lot of money, even if there isn't a lot of substance in your company (and even if things are morally or ethically questionable), through the mechanism of greater fools.

Amen brother. VCs and the Valley elite think the society at large has turned on them, without introspecting on how VCs seem to reward bad behavior and grift.

Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth

#250

Post by light_hue_1 »

pdonis wrote: post #125
jedberg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they want you to apply is twofold -- the application itself is a good exercise in getting you to think about things you should be thinking about. Honestly even if you have no intention at all of applying to YC you should still fill out the application for yourself, it makes you think about important things. And the second reason is that they get to see as many options as possible, because that's obviously…

> If every startup in the world applied and they could choose, of course that would be better. Would it? With numbers that large, how could anyone possibly do a meaningful comparison and pick out the twenty or thirty or fifty that would get in? In other words, if it's obvious to everybody that you are getting too many applications to meaningfully evaluate all of them, they everybody knows that you are not meaningfull…

This is true of all top universities too. We get so many applications for grad school that we could admit several classes and not lose any quality.

But I would never discourage anyone from applying. Even if the quality is high, having many applicants gives you good 2nd order choices. This depends on what mix of things you care about from DEI, to looking at specific ideas like the YC calls, to hedging across different markets, to building a portfolio that balances short term wins vs. long term hard tech, maybe some fraction you optimize for publicity, or legacies, etc.

So yes, encouraging applications is the smart move even if by your primary metric you can't distinguish between the top folks anymore.

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