My startup is trying to serve ALL the families that live in an apartment building or in a neighborhood (to get economy of scale and make delivery as cheap as possible), but is really hard to get older people to trust and use the internet to buy online. What are your advice to deal with this demographic?
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
301–310 of 757 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#302Hey Sam, can you give please tell us about the time you, sama, most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage?
Sure. When I was running my startup, we got catastrophic news that the first big customer in the space (Boost Mobile) was signing a deal with a competitor instead of with us. This would have killed us. The competitor was a much larger and better funded company that had been around for years. I was a 20 year old CEO. Most big companies do not like to make risky decisions, so this was not entirely surprising. We got th…
Is this more hustling than hacking? I'm scratching my head and trying to figure out how it's a "hack", as in "beating the system" [1].
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#303I forget which speaker, it may have been Peter Thiel, was discussing how difficult starting a startup is at one of the startup school talks, and said "there are easier ways to make a lot of money". I would be curious if you knew what he (or whomever said that) would consider easier.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#304Does more than 1 partner review an application? and how do you maintain quality in screening applications and interview teams? Is recommendations from current partners have weight-age in the screening process (from instacart application hack)?
Yes, in general about 3 partners, sometimes many more. We are very rigorous about maintaining quality and compute lots of statistics on this.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#305Does more than 1 partner review an application? and how do you maintain quality in screening applications and interview teams? Is recommendations from current partners have weight-age in the screening process (from instacart application hack)?
How much weightage does hackernews involvement add to the application (PG used to say he had some weightage)?
Very little.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#306Hi Sam,
In the Winter 15 class there was not a single startup from the African continent. Are you guys interested in startups that are targeting emerging markets?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#307Hi Sam,
I've heard you mention a few great things about University of Waterloo (They even have you in a video on their Engineering channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQz5hj8y1TE).
Waterloo has such a vibrant startup scene and several groups from the region have gone through YCombinator.
When is the next time you are coming to visit Waterloo?
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#308Hey. This may sound like an unusual question, but I thought I'd ask.
We started our company about 4 years ago. Since then our apps have been downloaded by 3 million people in over 100 countries (see http://qbix.com/blog/ ) Every year we've been applying to YC, and never even making it to the interview. I know that YC likes to invest in teams and the ideas sometimes change ... and as far as teams go, I think we've done some impressive things. (For example, http://qbix.com/about) So I would think that at least we'd get a chance to be invited. We applied about 4-5 times in the last 4 years. The weirdest thing is that most of the times the founder video didn't get any views on YouTube (we tracked it).
Could it be that YC just gets so many applications that they don't really have time to go through them all, and watch all the videos?
Does it make sense to apply again? Are we blacklisted for some reason?
Sorry for being so blunt, but we really do like YC and we were just curious because there's very little feedback as to what goes on in the application process.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#309Sam,
Whats your take on startups targeting opportunities in developing countries ( difficult to operate terrains)? These are of course markets that have the potential of affecting billions of people.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#310How does the partnership structure work at YC? What does it mean to be a part-time partner? Do all partners get carry?
It's a flat partnership--we all get the same economics (including me). If you want a salary, it trades off against your equity.
Part-time partners get less equity and spend less time on YC.