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I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#331

Post by paul »

lhfaria wrote: post #178

Hi Sam, I read a post of you guys saying that a lot of founders think they're too early to apply to YC. That's my case. We're just in our first thousands of dollars in revenue, and honestly when I think of YC - no matter how much confident we are with our business - I believe we don't really stand a change against other applicants. Any specific advice/thoughts on this?

Many of our most successful companies entered YC with little more than an idea. Slope is more important than Y intercept - https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-profound-life-lesson...

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#332

Post by sama »

Danilka wrote: post #310

Many people suggest showing drafts of YC applications to founders of YC companies. The whole point of the exercise is to help founders pass the YC filtering mechanism. I feel like it's a waste of everybody's time. Instead, I am asking YC founders to do quick office hours with us and refer to YC if they liked what they saw. (which I have no control of). Am I doing the wrong thing and going to get rejected for not poli…

That sounds like a good plan.

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#333

Post by sama »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #297

Hi Sam, I am from India, do you accept Indian startups? If so do you have the rule of minimum two founders? Do you need the startup to have a product first? Also what do you recommend for a person wanting to start a company, I have an idea which seems good, but right now I do a job and can't sort of jump to YC, I'd like to do it sometime later though. Any thoughts?

Yes.

No--we will fund single founders, but it's harder.

No.

The best thing is just to do it--there is no pre-startup thing really.

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#334

Post by bch »

cperciva wrote: post #288
michaelmurray wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada perhaps (specifically Kitchener-Waterloo)?

Vancouver might be better. It has less of a tech sector, but frankly nowhere in Canada has enough of a tech sector to matter much; however Vancouver has the important advantages of being much closer to the bay area (2.5 hours flying time to SFO, 7 flights/day each way), being large enough to have a tech boom without completely unbalancing its economy, and actually being somewhere people want to live.

And same timezone as SF.

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#335

Post by jrpt »

The cost of rent in the Bay Area is getting really high, both SF and down south. The archetypal startup in a garage in Palo Alto is not as affordable as it once was. For various policy reasons it's really hard for new people to move to the area without paying an arm and a leg in rent.

Do you or YC have any thoughts on things you could do to help this, if any?

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#336

Post by ScottBurson »

Jemaclus wrote: post #189
jayzalowitz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good investors know it goes under, thats where the market is.

Categorically not true! All investors who put their toilet paper on the roll in the under position have such poor judgment that they're technically just gamblers!

I was a dedicated "over" guy until one of my cats discovered how easy and fun it was to unroll it. I had to switch to "under".

Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

#340

Post by brotoss »

slantedview wrote: post #322
sama wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Cook all of your own meals. Don't buy drinks at the bars if you go out. Don't buy expensive shit, you don't need the newest iphone every year or name brand designer stuff. Get a roommate. Not rocket sciene
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