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Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

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Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#31
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would someday like to allow access for individual investors. We actually looked into it this time around; it's still extremely difficult. But hopefully the laws keep evolving and someday soon we can make you lots of money :)

I can't help but think how ironic it is that most Americans would say what we have is capitalism, but at the same time there are laws in place prohibiting people from freely sending capital to each other.

It's regulated capitalism... You may not agree with the laws governing investments for private companies, but surely you can understand the motivation for protecting investors?

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#32
post #10

You know what would be really awesome / disruptive / game-changing? If YC funded the program via crowdfunding (eg. JOBS Act) monies so that normal peons (sorry, "non accredited investors") could realize gains from a fund of early startups while effectively locking out all these institutional investors. This would be a real coup for people who believe in Basic or Guaranteed Minimum Income [1], like Sama. [1] http://bl…

Eh, it might be a good idea for the small population of tech savvy investors in Silicon Valley who make 6 figures and work within the industry so they can make informed decisions. But the whole SEC regulatory dictum that allows only accredited investors (accreditation based on annual income and net worth, not passing a Series 7 test or what not) can invest in certain forms of securities is a good thing. Imagine if Jo…

> If you're living in SF and married to someone in tech, odds are you make enough to qualify as an accredited investor anyways-- the per annum barrier is pretty low.

I'm not, and I'm not. I recognize that not everyone is sophisticated enough to do well at startup investing, but it's no one's place to tell me that I should be legally forbidden from making my own financial decisions. And I deeply resent the patronizing attitude of anyone who supports that prohibition.

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#33
Love to see Stanford leverage their successful models in incubating large part of Silicon Valley huge startup and franchise/multiple/clone into Stanford NY, Stanford LA, HongKong, Shanghai, Bangalore, London, etc.

With large amount of the Stanford class contents already online, it is probably just setup small local campus for testing, group study local students and meetup.

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#35
post #13

Stanford is really an investment fund that runs a school on the side for the tax break. This started in 1991, when Stanford spun off their endowment management as the Stanford Management Company.[1] SMC's headquarters was on Sand Hill Road, across from all the VCs. This ended up putting Stanford into venture capital in a big way. This was new. Before that, universities tended to put their endowments into passive inve…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#36
post #10

You know what would be really awesome / disruptive / game-changing? If YC funded the program via crowdfunding (eg. JOBS Act) monies so that normal peons (sorry, "non accredited investors") could realize gains from a fund of early startups while effectively locking out all these institutional investors. This would be a real coup for people who believe in Basic or Guaranteed Minimum Income [1], like Sama. [1] http://bl…

Eh, it might be a good idea for the small population of tech savvy investors in Silicon Valley who make 6 figures and work within the industry so they can make informed decisions. But the whole SEC regulatory dictum that allows only accredited investors (accreditation based on annual income and net worth, not passing a Series 7 test or what not) can invest in certain forms of securities is a good thing. Imagine if Jo…

Essentially how the first tech stock bubble played out

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#37
post #10

You know what would be really awesome / disruptive / game-changing? If YC funded the program via crowdfunding (eg. JOBS Act) monies so that normal peons (sorry, "non accredited investors") could realize gains from a fund of early startups while effectively locking out all these institutional investors. This would be a real coup for people who believe in Basic or Guaranteed Minimum Income [1], like Sama. [1] http://bl…

Eh, it might be a good idea for the small population of tech savvy investors in Silicon Valley who make 6 figures and work within the industry so they can make informed decisions. But the whole SEC regulatory dictum that allows only accredited investors (accreditation based on annual income and net worth, not passing a Series 7 test or what not) can invest in certain forms of securities is a good thing. Imagine if Jo…

No it is not a good idea.

The whole "we're protecting you" argument is a line of garbage intended to sway meatheads into thinking that being denied access to ownership and prosperity is a good thing. That these these opportunities should only be given to already wealthy people and that the peons are too stupid to understand concepts like "this is pretty risky, you'll probably lose it all, but if it hits you might make a bundle."

In the meantime, the lobbyist for every other way to lose your shirt have made sure that all the doors are open to everyone. The poor little peons too stupid to understand if Facebook might have been a good risk are still able to: blow all their money in Vegas, invest in penny stocks, buy Apple at a top and sell at a bottom, buy a virtual spaceship for $10K, buy a house with maximum leverage into a bubbly market, have $100K in credit card and vehicle debt, and on and on. There are a million ways to shoot yourself in the foot and they are all perfectly fine, but if you want to put $1000 into Google pre-IPO then WHOA we gotta protect you from that!

I don't know what world you live in, but the accreditation barrier limits investors to the top 1-2% of the US. Very few people make $200K/yr single, $300K/yr married. Plus they changed the net worth provision to exclude home value. How many people do you think there are that have $1M net worth exclusive of their house?

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but think how ironic it is that most Americans would say what we have is capitalism, but at the same time there are laws in place prohibiting people from freely sending capital to each other.

It's regulated capitalism... You may not agree with the laws governing investments for private companies, but surely you can understand the motivation for protecting investors?

Protecting investors? By making it illegal for most people to actually become investors?

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#39
post #13

Stanford is really an investment fund that runs a school on the side for the tax break. This started in 1991, when Stanford spun off their endowment management as the Stanford Management Company.[1] SMC's headquarters was on Sand Hill Road, across from all the VCs. This ended up putting Stanford into venture capital in a big way. This was new. Before that, universities tended to put their endowments into passive inve…

"Stanford is really an investment fund that runs a school on the side"

That's a bit of an exaggeration, no? I think the vast majority of people would correctly describe it as a top-ranked private university in California.

Re: Stanford, Michael Bloomberg Now Back Every Y Combinator Startup

#40
post #13

Stanford is really an investment fund that runs a school on the side for the tax break. This started in 1991, when Stanford spun off their endowment management as the Stanford Management Company.[1] SMC's headquarters was on Sand Hill Road, across from all the VCs. This ended up putting Stanford into venture capital in a big way. This was new. Before that, universities tended to put their endowments into passive inve…

I recently posted a thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397654 on SMC. It seems SMC has been a mess for past decade. See The Stanford Endowment Experiment http://www.ai-cio.com/channels/widescreenstory.aspx?id=21474....

/u/nrao123 is correct. Yale Endowment is the pioneer and the gold-standard that every other endowment is trying to mimic and compares themselves to.

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