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Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator

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Re: Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator

#272

Post by RGamma »

nostrademons wrote: post #15
kamikazeturtles wrote: post #3

It seems the first few batches of YC were VERY successful. But, the number of successful YC companies I can think of from the last 10 years of batches is very minimal despite them investing in thousands of companies. Makes you wonder, does the funding landscape need a new YC level disruption because YC seems to have peeked, return wise (not hype wise). Maybe AI might be their saving grace if everything works out

It's because every market inefficiency eventually disappears as entrepreneurs capitalize on it. It's like there's an optimal architecture for the economy at a given technology level, and the job of the entrepreneur is to find that architecture and refactor the economy, piece by piece. And if they're successful, they get to take everything of value in the old, obsolete parts of the economy that get destroyed. When YC…

And when the new equilibrium point involves a huge amount of centralization and off-shoring and therefore wealth concentration and loss of livelihood, the proletariat becomes angry.

In that context it's a fiendishly genius move to atomize and distract the "obsolete parts of the economy" and have them vote for their own disempowerment.

It's maddeningly obvious and feels unrelentingly deterministic. If the plutocrats fail to properly cement their position however, we already know what happens next.

Re: Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator

#276

Post by liotier »

dailyplanet wrote: post #228

I used to look up to YCombinator, but now I am disappointed in the role YCombinator played in platforming anti-democratic figures like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, etc. who espouse scientific racism and eugenics with their obsession of race-based IQ levels and their desire for European whites to dominate over others. Big Tech's disruption model is not good for stability and notions of tolerance a…

The brave comment I was looking for... I feel the same: Silicon Valley used to be holy Mecca to this French person; since I started having Internet access in the early 90's, all daily online activity was turned towards it - and some of that remains, as I log on here. To me, the financial success of the companies was a minor side-effect of the technological utopia which was the main point. But those who found financial success turned Silicon Valley into a toxic brand... They managed to make quietly progressive European companies look cool in comparison !

Re: Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator

#280

Post by Dave_Rosenthal »

knuckleheadsmif wrote: post #251
Dave_Rosenthal wrote: post #208

I worked with pg in a three-person startup in a basement in Harvard square just before he started YC. I was an undergrad at MIT and met him after arguing with rtm (who was a TA for my class) about TCP backoff. It was called Aspra and we were trying to build an app development platform for mobile phones. The idea was that you could build an application that could "render" to either an IVR system, for dumb phones, or t…

In the mid 90s (1996?) So myself and 3 others worked for Intuit and we traveled, from Mountain View CA, to your tiny office near Harvard to look at acquiring the company. I believe Intuit made a lowball offer and eventually you sold yourselves to Yahoo for twice the price. At Intuit we did not offer you guys money for the product, it really was not that special at all, but for the people—I thought only 3 folks at the…

You were talking to a slightly earlier company--this was post Viaweb.
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