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Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

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Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#51

Post by scott_s »

brudgers wrote: post #41
kalininalex wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Apple, Jobs didn't sit on his hands, but went on to found two companies - Pixar and NEXT. Pixar alone would have made him famous, again. And, NEXT assured his return to Apple, because of Apple's failure to innovate in early 90s and the need of something, anything to restart its OS line. NEXT and Jobs were their best bets. Even without Apple Jobs would have accomplished many things. That's just the kind of perso…

Luck has everything to do with it. If Jobs and Woz had been born in Jackson, Mississippi, they would not have known much about phreaking, attended Home Brew Computer club meetings, or known HP employees with disposable income to spend on the Apple I.

This recent submission is quite relevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4065233

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#52

Post by webwright »

hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

I think your response and the OP are quite wrong on a few fronts.

First off, YC is NOT looking for companies that take $20M exits. They certainly happen, but it's not great for YC. 95% of the money made in the valley from liquidity events in the valley are from 10 companies-- YC is trying to be part of those 10. The smaller exits just keep the lights on (don't believe me? Do the math on what YC gets from a $20M exit after being diluted thru a funding round or two).

Second, to say "The approach of remaining independent, and investing profits back into to the company followed by technology zealots such as Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs is unattractive to an investor," is just flat out wrong. There are certainly long-game consumer plays (like Facebook) where revenue is eschewed. But Heroku? Parse? Dropbox? AirBnB? Monster cash flow businesses.

As to whether Jobs would do YC-- he might not have when Apple was already growing. What about when he was selling blue box hardware? What about when he came back from India and got a job at Atari?

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#53

Post by afterburner »

ThomPete wrote: post #48
davidw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that he was smart enough to say things like that. Who wants to hear a rich guy say how much he loves having such a shitload of money that most people could not even imagine it?

He proved through is way of living that he wasn't about the money. He lived by all metrics a fairly simple and humble private live far from the Ellifsons out there.

He may not have cared about money as much as other rich people, but it seems like he loved to make money, or, in another sense, sell a lot of something.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#54

Post by raverbashing »

larrys wrote: post #34
hi wrote: post #19

You mean would Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator? (Oh yeah, that other Steve...) No! They were too busy hacking phones and building things people wanted to waste time to go through the application process of YC. Money was chasing them. This is true for most runaway successes, they were all true hackers that broke things: Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Not the "hackers" who are asking for $125k…

"They didn't care about the money" While your statement is true about Wozniak from what I know it's not true about Jobs. He was a business person and he knew how to make a buck in addition to wanting to "change the world". Same with Gates for that matter.

I believe, and of course I may be wrong, that SJ did care about money, but as a means of something.

I'm sure he would be very bothered if he didn't have money to take Apple to a fair, or to get the needed parts.

(of course, if you're starving you care about money)

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#55

Post by xrt »

ThomPete wrote: post #48
davidw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that he was smart enough to say things like that. Who wants to hear a rich guy say how much he loves having such a shitload of money that most people could not even imagine it?

He proved through is way of living that he wasn't about the money. He lived by all metrics a fairly simple and humble private live far from the Ellifsons out there.

Actually, one of his houses was less than a mile from Larry's place.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#56

Post by kenjackson »

With all due respect this article seems naive. Sure Google is building self-driving cars now (not exactly innovative, since virtually every 3rd grader lists that as one of the things they imagine in the future), but they did that after acquiring a hugely profitable core business which was "just another search engine".

Everything is "just another xyz" until its not.

What YC gets is that it asks it's founders to solve a problem. Maybe a real pain point, or a problem you don't know even exists until someone points it out to you, but whatever it is -- solve it well. At that points your minor pivots are leveraged until, before you know it, you're moving a mountain, when you started just intending to move a pebble.

And BTW, didn't Dropbox pass on an acquisition from Apple near $1B?

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#57

Post by larrys »

davidw wrote: post #46
startupfounder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me” - Jobs “Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful . . . that’s what matters to me.” - Jobs

You could argue that he was smart enough to say things like that. Who wants to hear a rich guy say how much he loves having such a shitload of money that most people could not even imagine it?

"You could argue that he was smart enough to say things like that."

Agree. There is a pattern with people with money who do this. Oprah on her show would take people to her Chicago house which was nice but not opulent in the same way as her other houses. And she would make random statements about the cost of things to try and sound like an ordinary person. As if we are supposed to believe that someone worth hundreds of millions really needs to care about the price of vegetables in the super market? People try to wear frugality like a badge of courage trying to seem like "real" folk. I know of a particular wealthy VC who talks about flying coach. They are trying to say "I'm just like you.." don't be jealous.

While I've seen many wealthy people give away plenty of money to charities I have yet to see one (while still alive) that gives away all of their money except enough to live like an ordinary person in suburbia would do. Or even a majority of their money.

Trump of course has made a good living out of trying to say what a "shitload" of money he has. That's because that is what he is trying to sell an image of being successful which has of course helped him become successful. That's part of his product.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#58

Post by brandonb »

>I think the problem is rooted in the business model that seems to be preached by Y Combinator: build a great product, choose investment over income, and exit as quickly as possible.

YCombinator never tells founders to "exit as quickly as possible". In fact, they and most other technology investors get 90+% of their returns from the home runs and encourage founders to go big if things are working. You can do the math yourself: how many talent acquisitions would it take to add up to one Dropbox ($4B valuation)?

While a lot of companies coming out of YCombinator (and Silicon Valley in general) are focused on the internet, there are exceptions. For example, there was a 3D scanning company in the most recent batch: http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/27/matterport-3d-scanner/

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#59

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

startupfounder wrote: post #42
larrys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They didn't care about the money" While your statement is true about Wozniak from what I know it's not true about Jobs. He was a business person and he knew how to make a buck in addition to wanting to "change the world". Same with Gates for that matter.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me” - Jobs “Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful . . . that’s what matters to me.” - Jobs

I feel compelled to point out that what Steve Jobs said and what Steve Jobs did very rarely aligned all that much.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#60

Post by philwelch »

startupfounder wrote: post #43
dpritchett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think YC supports the companies that shoot for the moon, but people aren't willing to take the risk and say no to acquisitions of $20-$100m because that is the short term business model of today and people just want to take their $5m and show off. A more charitable take: A founder with a few grand in the bank is doing a high wire act without a safety net. A respected repeat founder who's already banked a few mill…

This is the mindset I am talking about, "I just need a few million as a pillow and then I can create something great!" A founder with a few grand in the bank who can create something great is the founder who doesn't depend on money to make them great! They don't need to look for investors to support them and give them an allowance. Look at Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, etc... Money is not the dependent factor, they ha…

Elon Musk only did Tesla and SpaceX after becoming a billionaire.
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