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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

#561

Post by pedalpete »

RCra wrote: post #393
dilippkumar wrote: post #79

I'd love to apply, but I'm on a H1-b visa and I'm basically in prison. How did the other international founders you worked with get around the immigration mess to start a company?

Hey DK, Just another entrepreneur here, but I'm a Canadian citizen and also need a VISA. I've received excellent help from Julie Pearl's firm: https://www.immigrationlaw.com/ They work with plenty of startup founders and I was recommended her through fellow immigrant founders. :) Hope this helps!

As a Canadian, I'd suspect entering the US under a TN visa (Free trade agreement if you have an applicable university degree or 10 years experience) would probably do it. Anybody have experience with that when attending YC?

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

#563

Post by beachstartup »

newjersey wrote: post #532
beachstartup wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: i should emphasize this is only my experience as a startup hiring manager. maybe YC attracts nothing but geniuses, i dunno. i'm just a guy on the internet. since yc is obviously not going to talk shit on their own applicants, i'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's just like every other job application process when six figures (or more) of money is on the line. big paychecks attract plenty of, sh…

Oh wow. I wish they said that the bar was so low. I would like to apply as well if that's the case. Edit: I still think the idea of Dropbox is pretty stupid and I wouldn't have given Drew Houston a penny if I was an investor. But I never thought the average application would be so far worse if Dropbox got funded and succeeded.

well, hold on, i don't speak for yc, i was just going off of my own hiring experiences and perhaps extrapolating a bit creatively.

but i can read a lot into sama's "not very good" understatement. for a yc (or vc) partner to say that in an actual post is pretty telling.

and of course, my statement about grammar is grammatically wrong. not much changes on forum banter through the decades, does it?

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

#566

Post by pedalpete »

d--b wrote: post #89

Hi Sam, when I applied to YC a while back (2014 I think), I noticed that the video I posted was looked at once after 12am, and the landing page on my website was opened at something like 1am for 10 seconds. With the amount of applications you guys receive that seems inevitable, but it also seems that you would miss a lot of stuff if the reviewers are checking things well into the night. Have you made some progress on…

I've heard similar results before, and as a judge for another incubator which doesn't get near the application numbers as YC, I'll give you my two cents.

I wouldn't be to concerned on timestamps. I'd look more at time on site and time on video.

The video has to get to the point quickly and present your ideas. If I'm 15-20 seconds in and you haven't clearly stated your business, and I didn't get an instant understanding of it from your application, I'll probably stop watching the video, assuming that I'm not going to get anything more out of it.

If I decide to keep watching the video, I actually just listen to it while I'm reviewing the rest of the application.

Then I'll go on to the website if there is one. First off judgement of website will again be - is it clear why this exists, will a new user/customer/target get why they are here. What am I looking to get from the website? Can I find it, can I get more info.

I doubt I spend more than 30 seconds on an applicants website, but that isn't a dig, or even a negative. Go to any site like of a not yet publicly available product, try this test with google brillo https://developers.google.com/brillo/, set a watch and check out how much time you spend on the site. 30 seconds is a long time. 10 seconds is enough to get it and judge favorably or otherwise.

I've applied for the latest round of YC and was very surprised to see my video was watched for the full 2-minutes. I went over time, but explained everything up front (I think). At the same time, it's possible the video just played in the background while the judge moved on to other things and ignored it...

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

#567

Post by pedalpete »

baron816 wrote: post #557
throw420 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just stop working on this idea. The main problem, imho, with the current model of startup creation, is that it heavily selects for young technical people with little in the way of other commitments to take chances on new ideas. Many young technical people are hard-working and driven and that's wonderful, but (1) they form a narrow demographic [if you hang out at too many hacker cons you'll wildly overestimate the pop…

Thanks for trying to talk me out of this. No one has done that before despite me trying to get them to, so I really appreciate the feedback. None of your points causes any concern for me though. I have lot of ideas on how to retain users--it's not simply a single use product. Krewe is not a "Tinder for friends," it's completely different and actually tries to mimic the way people naturally form and maintain friendshi…

Good attitude, and though I agree with some of the points brought up, I will ask you make a small adjustment to your final statement re:'the right solution'.

You may not and most likely are not near to the right solution, and your goal maybe shouldn't be to find the right solution to the stated problem, but can you keep rephrasing the problem to show you a better solution to a better problem?

It is very difficult not to get attached to a solution to a problem, but if you're solving for the wrong problem, you've already lost.

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

#568

Post by cybin »

Hey Sam:

So I've been working diligently for the last few weeks putting the final edits on my application to YC. I'm 68 years old an the only founder. On the positive side I've got almost 50 years of work in the project that defines the state of the art.

Am I wasting my time in applying considering my age and singleness?

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

#569

Post by pedalpete »

vecter wrote: post #540
theoracle101 wrote: post #498

I'm at a YC startup that's successful. How do you look at early employees of such companies, and how I tactfully apply? There is no way I could without it getting back to my CEO (or so it seems to me)

YC is so big and has so many (1) existing portfolio companies and (2) applicants to go through that they simply don't have the time to even care about this. We graduated YC in S12 and, outside of fundraising, talk with partners on average once a year. I don't think we've reached out to YC or YC partners have reached out to us in any meaningful way for the past year or two. Perhaps counterintuitively, this is even mor…

I find this interesting as I thought one of the benefits of YC was the community, and it seems there has been a lot of talk about the community tools available to alumni. Have you not had any benefit from these at all? Or do you mean specifically you don't interact with YC partners?

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

#570

Post by lbotos »

cybin wrote: post #568

Hey Sam: So I've been working diligently for the last few weeks putting the final edits on my application to YC. I'm 68 years old an the only founder. On the positive side I've got almost 50 years of work in the project that defines the state of the art. Am I wasting my time in applying considering my age and singleness?

Holy wow! I'm not Sam but kudos, keep at it no matter what. Inspired right now.
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