Hi Sam! Best actionable advice you can give to a room full of entrepreneurs in 30 seconds? Thanks.
I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
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Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#42Couple questions regarding YCR:
1. Will the model be group-based where there's a head PI setting the research agenda for a group and researchers working under the PI? If so, what level of independence do you expect individual researchers within a group to have? I.e. is it more like the academic model with postdocs enjoying a fair degree of independence, or more akin to national labs where the research agenda is reasonably fixed and everyone is expected to contribute to the same research program? Or, are you coming up with an entirely different model?
2. In general how hands-on will YCR be in terms of intra-group management?
3. Do you expect to subscribe to all the major publishing houses so that YCR researchers have access to journals like they would at a top-tier university?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#43@sama Would you call yourself a statistician or a visionary?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#44Sam, we launched Asqway app on 29 September this year (https://itunes.apple.com/app/asqway/id1039694793?ls=1&mt=8) and we have been extensively talking to our initial users, we have gathered user’s feedback and updating Asqway app accordingly. Next version of the app will be released in 1 week of time. Up till now we have almost 50 users. So my question is, shall we wait to get more users (I mean at least 1000 users) and then apply for YC Summer 2016 batch or apply now for YC Winter 2016 batch?? What’s your recommendation? Do number of users for the start-up product counts while applying for the YC?? Also, we don’t have monetary model at the moment. So what will you recommend in terms of having monetary model for the start up? We are measuring our growth on the basis of daily active users. Thanks Pratim
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#45How long does it typically take the YC team to review an application?
It honestly hugely varies. Sometimes 2 minutes. The longest I've ever spent on a single application (where I had to do background research) was probably an hour. But I try for my normal cadence to be 6 per hour.
Some applications that are really great or really bad are reviewed by only one of us, most are reviewed by about 3, and the ones near the cutoff are reviewed by a lot.
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#46Do startups, and if so how, need to execute differently in today's frothy funding environment?
What are some technologies that excite you?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#47@Sama, So my question is about YC Research. You said in that earlier thread you will be hand picking the people. How exactly do you intend to do that if you don't me asking? Are you partnering with schools? Are they going to be recommended? Do you already have a database?
Not a complete answer at all, but it looks like the former CTO of stripe, Greg Brockman, is going to be involved[1]. I assume to start they're gonna look at people close to the YC network?
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#48Are there technologies or startups that you haven't funded, despite the team/tech/product/strategy being great, simply because it was a decade or so too soon? (For example: funding VR in the early 00s vs. funding VR in 2013, etc.)
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#49Hi @sama, I'm From Brazil and CEO of an EdTech startup. We're profitable, with 60 employees and a lot consumer traction/revenue, but didn't raise a Series A yet. Questions: 1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets? 2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all)…
1) No specific advice--we fund lots of companies whose products target far-away markets and are particularly interested in doing so. The only different question we might ask you is "How will you handle being away from your users for 3 months?" 2) We have funded companies that have raised more than $10 million, and they've said they still got a lot of value out of YC. If anything, it's usually the existing investors t…
Wow, that would be great! Please, let us know if we can help in any way during your visit. Lots of interesting things for you to see in the Brazilian startup ecosystem. We are close to São Paulo (where Embraer, the 3rd largest airplane manufacturer in the world is located). Regards
Re: I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
#50@sama - Based on my friends who have previously applied to YC .. it seems as if applications submitted in the last 3-4 days before the deadline, don't really get reviewed.
When submitted early, they would notice YC related views to their website and Youtube video. Unfortunately, when submitted close to the deadline, there were no views.