51–57 of 57 posts
I wouldn’t use Mark Zuckerberg as an example of someone you “got right” though. Whether his creation has been a net gain for society as a whole is highly debatable, which I think should disqualify him as an entrepreneurial success story.
First of, thanks for being part of YC and making it such a great place. I've never been there, but the whole spirit is healthy and that I very much appreciate. >I looked at qualities of the applicants my cofounders couldn't see. Did they seem earnest? Were they determined? Were they flexible-minded? And most importantly, what was the relationship between the cofounders like? I second this. People who say soft skills…
>People who say soft skills are dead Are you sure people actually say that? This struck me as odd because it seems to be the total opposite of what people say. It seems virtually everyone stresses "soft skills" repeatedly. But I have no proof of this so I just did a quick search of Google's 130 trillion pages to try and get a sense if people out there are really saying that soft skills are useless: "soft skills are d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>People who say soft skills are dead Are you sure people actually say that? This struck me as odd because it seems to be the total opposite of what people say. It seems virtually everyone stresses "soft skills" repeatedly. But I have no proof of this so I just did a quick search of Google's 130 trillion pages to try and get a sense if people out there are really saying that soft skills are useless: "soft skills are d…
"soft skills are dead" is not expressed that way. It's expressed as "the cofounders should be tech", and other such advice which emphasizes the technical capabilities of the cofounders and early hires, and to not trust "suits". Not taking a side here, but just saying that the valley does tend to emphasize a lot on tech over other aspects of running a business.
"Founders need to be tech" is said often, but you're assuming "Founders need to be tech OR Founders need to have soft skills", which is an unnecessary assumption.
For example, "Founders should be determined" is also expressed often, doesn't mean they're expecting it to be an either-or with the quality of "being tech"
I enjoyed the article, but I worked for a startup in 1999 that was funded by a technology accelerator. So it would appear Ycombinator wasn't the first, unless this is meant in some more specific way.
I can appreciate how you feel, but the winner writes history. Out of curiosity, what was the name of the tech accelerator that you're referring to?
I've known of many others too. I'm sure Red Hot wasn't the first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, the claim caught me too. Just an example: CMGI, Inc. was calling themselves an Internet Incubator around 1995. Probably better to make a claim based on success.
CMGI and the other “incubators” of that era were nothing like YC. The label “accelerator” was applied to YC years after it was started because of the need for a generic term to describe YC and all of the clones. Whether or not that label was previously used for some other kind of business is irrelevant.
I enjoyed the article, but I worked for a startup in 1999 that was funded by a technology accelerator. So it would appear Ycombinator wasn't the first, unless this is meant in some more specific way.
I was around then. The pre-YC incubators operated on a completely different model. They typically had shared services, centralized control, and were rarely filled with entrepreneurs doing their own thing. "Accelerator" was a term that YC used to distinguish themselves from that model, and whether or not they were the first to use the term what they did was truly different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was around then. The pre-YC incubators operated on a completely different model. They typically had shared services, centralized control, and were rarely filled with entrepreneurs doing their own thing. "Accelerator" was a term that YC used to distinguish themselves from that model, and whether or not they were the first to use the term what they did was truly different.
How would you characterize IdeaLab? As a startup studio? They were definitely more top down.