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Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
331–340 of 436 posts
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
can't really do that if your parents share an 800 square foot public housing apartment with your sister and her kids. or if they're in prison, or dead, or abusive, or they threw you out for not conforming to their religious choices, or disowned you for not being cisgender and heterosexual, or or or
Of course not, and that might be the case for 10-20% of the population. But you don't have to be some privileged trust fund kid for your parents to give you a place to stay in the event of financial hardship. That's not rare and let's hope that never becomes rare because I'd shudder a world where parents by and large would not do this for their kids.
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Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#333I find it disturbing that this is getting so much attention. The argument (such as it is) is utterly without merit, unsupported by anything other than the tweeter's personal opinion. It is, quite simply, a troll. And it seems to be working. In fact, the whole cultural phenomenon of paying attention to what people tweet is deeply disturbing. Twitter is not designed to support rational argument supported by data, it's…
"So if you're an outsider you should actively seek out contrarian projects. Instead of working on things the eminent have made prestigious, work on things that could steal that prestige."
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please show me some organizations that are a bunch of rich white people who all attended Ivy League schools but are otherwise highly diverse (race, gender, etc.). That's the problem - you're talking in theory (obviously there are rich black people and they have resources) while ignoring practical reality, which is that race and socioeconomic status are highly correlated to the point where you can't just magically ign…
> highly diverse (race, gender, etc.). Why do you think that race and gender = diverse? They just have different races and gender, but might think the same way = not diverse.
He literally used the example of groups that are diverse by race and gender by everyone is rich and went to Ivy League schools. Thus the request for an example along those lines.
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#335The idea that check sizes should be small so people should be forced into dire financial situations is a terrible one, and one that would absolutely hurt diversity. You're going to end up with a bunch of rich white dudes as founders (because very, very obviously the other way that people can afford to take smaller checks is if they have a lot of money in the bank). The smaller class size issue is probably fair, but r…
We have a silicon valley success story in our family. His parents were telling me how he built everything up out of nothing, clearly unaware of their own contribution. He could pour all his money into his start-up because if he'd lost every dime he could have moved back in with them. He'd have his own bedroom, bathroom, and a fresh-cooked meal every night. He could have stayed with them as long has he wanted. Very fe…
I think it's perfectly ok that if I save and work that my kids will have a leg up on my peers' kids who don't do the same.
Don't we want, as a society, to encourage parents to do these things for their kids? Isn't that a net win for society as a whole?
The alternative would require a near 100% estate/death tax, wouldn't it?
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please show me some organizations that are a bunch of rich white people who all attended Ivy League schools but are otherwise highly diverse (race, gender, etc.). That's the problem - you're talking in theory (obviously there are rich black people and they have resources) while ignoring practical reality, which is that race and socioeconomic status are highly correlated to the point where you can't just magically ign…
Correlation is not causation, HN should know this. The problem is down to injustices from long ago, and a lack of ability to build generational wealth stemming from that historical racism. It doesn't mean that race is the defining factor.
You literally just pointed out the causation that is the lack of ability to build generational wealth stemming from historical racism.
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#337Several years ago I used to read pg old articles (also Joel S, pgreenspun) without realizing who he was or know what YC was. It clicked with my nerds mindset. I had an impression that he was a champion for the underdog, nerds like me who is smart enough (but not genius), willing to work hard and live frugal. I also had the understanding that ambition to be a unicorn not necessary, it is much more important to be rame…
PG has posted on HN before that the bar for intelligence to be successful as a startup is not very high. He was specifically responding to someone who was doubting whether they were smart enough, and his response was "if you're reading this then you're likely smart enough". I think the premise being that if you're already on HN and reading about these topics you've met the bar.
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just looked at the winter class and I agree a lot of them look like duds. It definitely dilutes the brand if your startup is one of ~150 and almost all the others are just X for Y From your description, wanting to be the SME, early engineer, substantial equity - maybe you would be better off as a founder?
You guys need to understand that people have been saying things like "a lot of them look like duds" and "almost all the others are just X for Y" literally, and continuously, since YC got started.
Famously dropbox was ridiculed on HN
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't state it strongly enough. Startups are for the rich and privileged , by the very nature of their mechanism of success. Lottery tickets, playing blackjack, rolling dice, are things which should only be done with what you have in excess. I don't think it's YC's responsibility to even societal odds. They are downstream from that position and simply consume and profit off those who have more than they need. YC i…
Well then I guess I didn't state it strongly enough: society does worse when the startup process is only accessible by the rich and priviledged. YC isn't under an obligation to do the best it can for society. But if it wants to do that, or even to approximate it, the filter functions it uses implicitly and explicitly need to be considered carefully. YC has said a variety of things that indicate that it does have some…
It seems like YC has grown large and successful enough that it can shed some monetary value for the sake of greater social benefit. It has zero effect on me if they grant 25k, 50k, 100k, 200k to groups. My argument and position is not that participating companies shouldn't receive more money. That I don't care about at all. My concern is that it's being expressed that YC should be acting in accordance to perceived social justice rather than as what it is and always has been, a startup incubator. The argument is that an amount of money like 25k is equivocal to YC practicing racial exclusivity because it's not enough money to cover the needs, expenses, and risk calculations of a financially and socially impaired person. In that case, what amount of seed money is not considered to fall under the practice of racial exclusivity? I think the accusation is flimsy in the first place, and no defined amount of money would allay those kinds of allegations.
Re: Y Combinator has lost its soul: A YC founder's perspective
#340Recent YC founder here. I disagree with the premise that boring ideas are inherently bad. Stripe is a B2B company that adds an API on top of existing infrastructure. Airbnb is a basic CRUD app. I also disagree that YC is not funding interesting ideas. Our batch had quite a few. Someone was making a rapid cargo ship. Someone else was making a fully distributed cell network. The only real copycat ideas were the ones du…
2 Questions totally unrelated to your comment, but related to bottomless:
1) Do you ship to Canada?
2) How much weight can that scale hold?
I have a grinder with a built in (sealed) hopper where I store my beans. I assume from the setup, the grinder would have to sit on it for ease of use.