Hello Sam. I'm a Software Engineer at a Big Tech Co. I've been ambivalent about going back to school to do a part-time master's degree in AI, or just do self-studying. Creating a startup in the US is not an option for me yet since I'm on a TN visa (hoping to get a green card in the following years). What do you think is the best investment of my time, and how far ahead in the future should someone plan to start a "hard tech" startup? (I'm on my mid 20's)
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
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Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#272Was there a moment in your life that created a sense of urgency to live life to the fullest? From the looks of things you're doing so many (cool) things.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#273This is going to sound crass, but if a founder can't make the sacrifice to spend 3 months in SV for YC, are they really prepared to build the next billion dollar company?
If that founder is a director of engineering/product in an enterprise software company in Atlanta, has a spouse, two kids and a mortgage, and the health insurance is dependent on her/his employer, then they will probably have a higher sacrifice than if they are a single Stanford grad living in SF with a year of saving after working at Google. They both need to make a sacrifice but it's not the same scale. If you make…
Why doesn't a director have enough money saved up to support their family for at least three months? And I knew Navy folks who were away from their families for months at a time, so it is definitely possible (if not fun) to do this. But if you're becoming an entrepreneur for the fun, it's time to question your motives.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#274If relationship breakdown between cofounders is the reason for so many company failures, why does YC not proactively solve that by requiring all founders to attend weekly relationship counselling, for which YC pays? Could such a thing prevent more breakups and therefore greatly increase chances of company success? And the cost is pretty small for YC to employ relationship counsellors.
We don't require many things--founders are not are employees.
However, we do offer cofounder communication workshops to the batch. Innerspace puts them on, and they always get incredible reviews--in fact, some of the most positive reviews of anything we do.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#275what do you think about the recent article calling out on arrogance of SV?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#276What are the pros and cons of Silicon Valley being the VC capital of the world? How do you feel about it on the whole? Do you guys ever talk about diversifying, either inside the US or out?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
People in prison would likely take issue with a lot of things unreasonably, which is likely why they're in prison to begin with.
You think it's unreasonable to take issue with comparing someone on an h1b visa to being in prison?
I think I made that pretty clear. I'd add petty as well.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#278Hey Sam, Any comment regarding Jason Calacanis being banned from YC's upcoming demo day? Jason tweeted[1] his side but didn't know what the YC side of it was and was curious. [1] https://twitter.com/Jason/status/710176806184349696
Jason is a bully. I've heard plenty of horror stories of people who have worked for him. I'm not surprised in the least and I'm extremely glad to see people standing up to him.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#279Last March, you mentioned on twitter that you are a customer of/financially support Shanley Kane's organization, Model View Culture. Since since then (and before then too), she has made a variety of racially and sexually charged statements, such as, "fire some fuckin white guys to get it done" ( https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KtAdEv... ). Do you or Y-Combinator still patronize or support Model…
No.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#280When YC started, it was so small that PG and Jessica knew everyone's names and could invest a lot of time and effort into making the startups successful. One complaint as YC gets bigger is that there is more "Fast food advice", i.e. there are so many startups that a partner can't hardly remember all of them and we both know that most often than not the devil is in the details. What's YC plan to make sure this doesn't happen as it continues to grow stronger? I assume getting more partners on board is definitely one, and having special group for certain verticals (i.e. biotech or hardware). Any other plans? Thanks for the AMA