Hi Sam,
Thanks for doing this.
1. What do you consider your best professional accomplishment?
2. Have you ever visited Israel?
I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
321–330 of 559 posts
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#322Hi Sam, I'm a graduating college senior, and I've accepted a job at a very big company in the tech industry. Right now, it makes the most financial sense for me to join a big company and pay off my debt quickly, but at some point in the future I'd love to scratch that entrepreneurial itch and apply to YC. How do I maximize my time at a big company to gain relevant skills to keep the possibility of a startup open in t…
The best things you can do there are meet great potential cofounders, and get better at writing software. Also don't get sucked into living an expensive lifestyle when you get that high-paying job--this has killed many people's once-promising futures.
Which begs the question - how does one avoid living an expensive lifestyle in the bay/SF?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#323Hi Sam! Random question but I've read in a couple articles that your mom said by about 10, she would have been comfortable dropping you off alone in NYC. As a new parent, I'm intrigued by this. What kinds of things did your parents do with/for you to foster this level of independence? What had the biggest effect on you, personally?
I really lucked out big-time on the parent lottery.
My parents were and are incredibly supportive of anything I was interested in. But they were never "hovering". That's a great combination.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#324[deleted]
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#3251. Would / will you ever consider opening an East Coast branch? I understand all the "stuff" about why SV is great for startups, but there will always be people who can't /won't get up and travel completely to the other side of the country for an extended period of time. And while the EC might not be the startup hotbed that SV area is, it's quite clear that there is a LOT of startup activity and some great startups b…
1. Never say never, but no current plans (and honestly, it might make more sense to do something outside the US next). The hardest part would be convincing some of our partners to move out there, or finding new ones we could train out here first. 2. Not ready to talk about specific areas, but I promise they are interesting ones :) It will be super super easy for our researchers to collaborate with outsider researcher…
China. And do hardware startups.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#326Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#327I am a solo founder with strong technical and design chops. I am a high-level thinker, and I spend much of my time with big picture problems, establishing the vision, and figuring out a practical plan to get there from where we are now. But I can also execute on that vision, and build the entire system end-to-end. And I have an abnormally high level of standard. I strongly believe in quality software that just works.…
I'm not sama, but here are some thoughts anyway.
If this is really something you think could be big (a "winner takes all game" as you say), you're going to have to grow a company to address the opportunity -- which will mean giving up the lone wolf thing. That's a choice you have to make personally. I'm sure being the lone wolf is more comfortable, and it's entirely possible that you could build yourself a nice little business that way, but you won't be able to own the market.
Once you decide which way you want to go, applying to YC or not will be an easier decision. I do expect that YC could help you with your network.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#328Hi sama, First of all, thanks for the 10 million dollar donation for YC research. That's an amazing gesture, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the scientific research model get completely disrupted - it's in a terrible state and it needs a big shove. - Given your donation, what are your thoughts on philanthropy? - Most of your advice is for founders, however, what should an employee look in an early stage star…
1) I generally believe in trying to find the most-impactful areas to donate, and also concentrating on areas that are important to me personally, and also areas where I am uniquely suited to make a difference. This seems like a good intersection.
2) A controversial thing I believe is that unless you are getting multiple percent of equity, it's usually a bad deal to join an early-stage startup that hasn't yet found product-market fit and the resulting growth (there is a big exception here for hard tech startups that will take a long time to produce a product but be incredibly valuable if they're able to).
We've noticed that the best startups tend to not hire employees for awhile. One of the reasons, it seems, is they are able to convince much better people to join once things start working.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#329Your talks and latest actions suggest that YC is now more dedicated to making a better future, rather than helping individuals succeed. (thank you for that) Our startup is a for-profit company. However, as a part of our strategy we are making a lot of medical data open sourced. Even if we completely fail, we will move the leave an extremely positive footprint on traditional Chinese medicine industry. Q: 1. How would…
Sounds interesting. Link?
Not finished yet, but I'm happy to show sketches and explain everything. Ping me any time at d@spaceherbs.com or just call 415.960.9373 (Dan)
First versions are: http://spaceherbs.com/client/old/client/index.html http://spaceherbs.com/herbs http://spaceherbs.com/client/new/client/index.html
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#330Y Combinator has a record of supporting innovative ideas which come from the relative margins of the tech community, beginning with its invention of the startup accelerator as a concept. - Do you feel that Y Combinator's increasing visibility has helped your mission to attract a wide range of applicants beyond established tech industry insiders? - How do you manage the risk that your corresponding increase in competi…
1) Yes! That's really helped up expand into new areas.
2) The partnership talks about this all the time. We're very focused on not letting it happen. Far, far worse for us to miss one Airbnb than to fund 10 decent (and credible-sounding) companies.