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I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA

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

#491

Post by avz »

nostrademons wrote: post #487
OopsCriticality wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn't have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn't have a way to gauge one's performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn't have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one's ability to bring in money. Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one's abilities as an academic research…

Reading between the lines in sama's comment - I think his objective is to replace academia, such that in 20 years, nobody will either attend or work for a university. Except he can't say that, because a.) he'd be laughed off this thread and b.) it's not to YC's advantage to alert competitors that they are, in fact, a threat. The way it'd work out is the same way YC itself started: attract talented, smart people who h…

It is high time for such a change. It seems to me that tech culture is a better fit for scientific research than academia.

Scientific research is by its nature risky and uncertain. The current risk-averse culture of academia with its focus on grant applications, publishing, tenure, and positive results seems to discourage the risk-taking necessary in science.

On the other hand, the culture prevalent in tech accepts and encourages risk-taking, supports fast and easy recovery from failure and generally evaluates people on merit, not success or failure of their most recent project.

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

#492

Post by pavornyoh »

johnewu wrote: post #417

Isn't raising money a form of validation of your product/idea

@Johnewu, No, it is not. There have been several companies that have done that and failed. Think Quirky, think Webvan among others.

Being able to make money, showing clear metrics of how that is going to be done, customers keep coming back etc.. is validation of your idea/product.

For example, if you told your parents you were going to start a company and they decided to help you with money, do you consider that a validation of your idea/product? I am curious to see your answer.

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

#493

Post by solotronics »

sama wrote: post #109
wlamont wrote: post #3

Recently a plethora of startups working on new nuclear energy technology have been created: Transatomic power, Flibe, Helion and UPower (to name a few). These startups, respectively, have technology based on molten salt reactors (MSR), new fuels (Thorium), or new modalities (small distributed scale and fusion). Most of these startups face a huge challenge (and capital requirement) to go from idea/concept to pilot/dem…

I think they should just try to raise large amounts of money rather than partner with large companies for development. However, they will need to partner with utilities for pilot plants. I can't speak to the other companies, but my hope is that UPower and Helion have prototypes in ~3-5 years.

I sincerely hope these endeavors are successful!

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

#494

Post by hugh4 »

nostrademons wrote: post #487
OopsCriticality wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn't have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn't have a way to gauge one's performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn't have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one's ability to bring in money. Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one's abilities as an academic research…

Reading between the lines in sama's comment - I think his objective is to replace academia, such that in 20 years, nobody will either attend or work for a university. Except he can't say that, because a.) he'd be laughed off this thread and b.) it's not to YC's advantage to alert competitors that they are, in fact, a threat. The way it'd work out is the same way YC itself started: attract talented, smart people who h…

The broken aspects of academia are, it seems to me, an unavoidable consequence of needing a scalable system to determine who is doing well and who isn't, so you can give them money. I don't see how to dream up a system that gives you all the good of academia with none of the annoyances.

Think how hard the hiring problem is. How do you hire the best people? How do you assess someone's quality based on a few bits of paper and a short interview. Allocating funding in academia consists of solving problems like that, all the time.

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

#495

Post by nostrademons »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #373
brotoss wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you can get very efficient at it or you find the activity a source of leisure, then cooking your own food is a great cost savings. However, for someone in the tech industry the opportunity cost of not investing in themselves (i.e. coding, reading about code, meeting people, etc) for the same amount of time they are cooking (grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, cleaning, etc) usually isn't worth it. To me cooking…

Most meals aren't actually a huge time investment if you do them right. Make one trip to the grocery store a week (or two if you really need perishables like milk or fresh fish, but if you do that, just go in & out with a list). Make sure your apartment has a dishwasher. Get a (dishwasher-safe) food processor for chopping & dicing. Clean up while the food is cooking in the oven or on the stove. Cook big batches and have leftovers during the week.

My wife and I spend maybe 3-4 hours/week on cooking, but the key is that it's usually all batched up on Sunday (and maybe Wednesday) nights, so it doesn't interfere with work during the week. On weekdays, it takes 2 minutes to pop a tupperware into the microwave and dump it onto a plate. That's actually a lot faster than ordering Munchery or preparing Blue Apron.

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

#496

Post by tcdent »

nostrademons wrote: post #490
tcdent wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't know what you'd do with seed capital, then I'm not convinced you know where your company is going. You don't want a top-notch dev team? You don't have dreams to reach more enterprise customers? You don't want a world-class marketing campaign? You don't want a research team dedicated to the "next big thing"? There are tons of ways you can improve your offering. Stubbornness is a desire to remain the same,…

I think - based on his posting history, which dates back all the way to the beginning of HN - that Colin knows exactly where his company is going. He has very specific opinions about how security should be done, the expertise to back that up, and a customer base that's (mostly) on board with those choices. Tarsnap's used by a number of prominent companies and individuals here, notably Stripe [1], patio11, and stevekl…

You're talking about where his company is. I'm not saying he's not already doing great - he says it himself above.

My point is, if you're creative, directions to grow your company are not scarce. Resources to do-so are. If he is actually flush with cash, and doesn't know what to do with it, that's a fundamental problem.

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

#497

Post by mcnamaratw »

sama wrote: post #346
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #298

I think you mentioned somewhere that you are aiming for early-career researchers, not so much for established group leaders. Being an early-career researcher myself (postdoc), my first thought was that your program could easily turn out to be a trap. At first, it looks like a fantastic opportunity because freedom and independence, etc. However, I'm sure that you are looking for high risk / high reward projects. So th…

Well, that's fucked up about academia. All the more reason to create alternatives. Do you really want to be part of a system that does not allow for failure? At a minimum, I expect YCR researchers to be turning down job offers from YC companies all the time.

Whatever the details turn out to be, kudos for committing so much money to research.

It'll be very exciting to see what happens.

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

#499

Post by leeleelee »

nostrademons wrote: post #487
OopsCriticality wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publications and grants are the currency of academia: if one doesn't have a recent publication record, a hiring committee doesn't have a way to gauge one's performance and capabilities as an academic; if one doesn't have a history of getting grants, a hiring committee will be (rightfully) skeptical of one's ability to bring in money. Excepting teaching schools, one is hired for one's abilities as an academic research…

Reading between the lines in sama's comment - I think his objective is to replace academia, such that in 20 years, nobody will either attend or work for a university. Except he can't say that, because a.) he'd be laughed off this thread and b.) it's not to YC's advantage to alert competitors that they are, in fact, a threat. The way it'd work out is the same way YC itself started: attract talented, smart people who h…

"nobody will either attend or work for a university" -- universities will never disappear, at least not in 20 years because (a) there's too much business, cash flow, physical infrastructure, etc currently and (b) professions such as lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. will still require formal education whether you call it a "university" or not.

Those are 2 reasons off the top of my head.

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

#500

Post by just_to_ask_sam »

Hi Sam!

I'm the CEO & Founder of a 4-person SaaS company – profitable as most of our employees are outside the US. We're 4 years old, and are now doing ~$30k/mo in revenue. I started the company young and have learned a lot.

I question whether this is just a waste of my time, and whether I should just sell and start something new, but my worry is that by the time the new thing kicks off, THIS company will be making far more.

What are your thoughts on WHEN to sell a startup, and whether to even sell?

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