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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

#351

Post by sama »

bhayden wrote: post #313
sama wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really prefer at least two founders, but it's not a deal-breaker. We funded Drew Houston of Dropbox as a solo founder, but he got a cofounder before the batch started. A bad cofounder is far, far worse than no cofounder. I'd spend maybe 20% of your time looking for a cofounder, and the rest on your business. But don't force a cofounder if you don't have a good, organic option. The more progress you make on the bus…

It seems like you really need to know the potential cofounder as a person, though, otherwise you won't be sure what they're like when stressed or making mistakes. Doesn't this limit it to people you already know fairly well?

Yes, you do. We always ask how long the cofounders have known each other.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#353

Post by 3pt14159 »

andrewlynch wrote: post #333

One thing which surprised me about the current YC batch was the average age of the founders. Have you seen a gradual increase in average founder age over the past several years?

I can answer this one because I've been watching it from a unique perspective. Every year the median founder age tracks my age. Since I first started hearing about it in 2009 or 2010. This year they are 29.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#354

Post by niche »

mbym wrote: post #316
sama wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really prefer at least two founders, but it's not a deal-breaker. We funded Drew Houston of Dropbox as a solo founder, but he got a cofounder before the batch started. A bad cofounder is far, far worse than no cofounder. I'd spend maybe 20% of your time looking for a cofounder, and the rest on your business. But don't force a cofounder if you don't have a good, organic option. The more progress you make on the bus…

Very helpful, cheers. "The more progress you make on the business, the easier it will be to get a great cofounder" -- agreed -- and being accepted to YC would itself more than help convince people to join the team also :) I hope there are more Drew Houstons out there with confidence to apply.

Thanks sama and mbym. As a confounded solo founder waiting for organic cofundity, this is nice to hear.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#355

Post by sama »

jantos8 wrote: post #331

I am currently applying to the summer batch and I was wondering about my setup. I came to the U.S. about four years ago and immediately built a marketing agency and after a year added software development services to it. We grew rapidly to a stable stage and now I am at the point where I can step back from taking care of the company and let my other partners manage it (We are four partners). My question is, I am appl…

Make it clear in your application you're going to spend 100% of your time on this new business.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#357

Post by niche »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #341
api wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded: statistics such as these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77525 ... seem to show that very successful sole founder stories do exist. But nearly everything from the YC orbit says "find a partner or you'll fail," etc.

I came here to ask the same question. I started working on an idea of my own and I have many friends who are very talented but none that really seem to want to commit to something risky and obviously I don't want to force someone to come if they are not interested in taking the risk with me. This is the main reason my next application to YC will be solo but I am certainly open (and would prefer) a partner.

Hi BinaryIdiot, I am free and available, I am a TernaryIdiot, we could make a team!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#358

Post by daxelrod »

freehunter wrote: post #278
GolfyMcG wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if you don't use Alien Blue (the mobile app for Reddit) then you might not know they have been testing "Sponsored" posts. It didn't take a genius to know people would complain, but the ads are getting A LOT of pushback from users. I supposed you can put this in context and look at how Facebook gets crap for changing anything, but is this really the most creative idea Reddit can come up with to generate more rev…

A LOT of pushback? That link in another comment is the only pushback I've ever seen, and I use Alien Blue (having purchased it). I haven't even noticed sponsored posts on the mobile version (I have on the desktop site though), and they hardly bother me. I've never seen anyone else seriously complain about them either. Sam, if you're passing along GolfyMcG's feedback, please pass along mine as well. I run Ad Block, bu…

Here's the current status of ads, as I understand it:

On iPhone, you only see sponsored posts if you have not purchased Pro. When they rolled out ads initially to iPhone, Pro users saw them and complained, Reddit said it was a bug, and fixed something on the backend to prevent them from being shown to Pro users.

On iPad, you see sponsored posts even if you have Pro. As far as anyone can tell, this is intentional.

From the first 10 posts on /r/AlienBlue:

----------------

How to: Refund Alien Blue after Sponsored Ads Decision

I paid for no ads!

Has anyone else gone back to the old app?

Why are they monetizing the app before it even works properly? They have to know what the userbase thinks of this...

No ads! No test ads, no real ads, NO ADS!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#359

Post by sama »

chuckcode wrote: post #277

Could you comment on why start ups with remote teams anecdotally do poorly but many open source projects with very remote teams succeed? Do you see any tools on the horizon to help people coordinate remotely at a new level?

I think it's because startups have to make small changes to their idea several times per day. Very short cycle times do best with in-person interaction.
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