What's the most impactful skill people should learn in their 20s?
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
31–40 of 768 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#32I'm intrigued by your comments that you're interested in funding social networks—it seems like a new one launches on Product Hunt every day, but few are able to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem and achieve scale. What's your take on the best way to make the network useful on day one for a small number of users? What are you looking for in a YC app for a social network (with or without traction)?
The thing we look for the most is a small number of users that are super, super engaged with the product.
Most new social networks we see point to their top-level growth of new users. These usually eventually fade.
What you want instead is something that starts with a small number of users that use it many times every day. Snapchat is a good recent example of this phenomenon.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#33What's the most impactful skill people should learn in their 20s?
How to communicate well.
How to think for yourself (and especially, what problems are worth solving that others are ignoring).
How to build stuff (and especially, how to get things done instead of just talking about getting things done).
How to learn new things quickly.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#34Are educational projects viewed mainly by IK12 or by all YC partners? What about hardware educational startups, do they stand a chance? IK12 only got software startups so far, so...
All YC partners, and yes.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#35How do you know when it's time to move on with your idea?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#36What kind of security companies do you look out for? How much importance do you place on technical certifications when it comes to founders in security?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#37How do you know when it's time to move on with your idea?
When a) it's not working and b) you are out of ideas on how to make it work.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#38Applications are only for an already developed product/prototype ? Or can we apply apply to present an idea ?
You can apply with just an idea, but we have a bias towards people that get stuff done. The best founders usually build something early.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#39What kind of security companies do you look out for? How much importance do you place on technical certifications when it comes to founders in security?
Security is one of the areas we're most interested in, but we leave it to founders to show us the most promising sub-areas.
We don't care about technical certifications. I forget which company it was, but some large tech company found that the only negative predictor of success for its employees was technical certifications...
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#40What's the best way to find a cofounder if you've already graduated from college?