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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

#581

Post by tpeng »

ryanSrich wrote: post #449
sama wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an extremely patient investor. I just invested in a company that I believe will take 20-30 years to work. If reddit gets to a billion users, which I believe it will, the company will have many, many interesting monetizations opportunities. It's on its way to become one of the great monopolies of the web.

> If reddit gets to a billion users What makes this number significant? Can you talk about some of those opportunities that aren't available to reddit now, but will be when they reach that scale?

reddit has the potential to unlock a lot of value if niche subreddits can achieve critical mass. There are quite a few subreddits that could support highly targeted and valuable advertising. Comment and voting quality also appears to improve dramatically with scale; compare the quality of comments on default subs to niche subs. If niche subs can get that dramatic improvement in quality, reddit would also be able to attract much better demographics for commercial purposes

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

#582

Post by stevewilhelm »

physcab wrote: post #557
latj wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k enough for a person to live without roommates within 20-30 minutes commute from said startup? Eat healthy food? Pay student loans? Have health insurance and build savings? I'm not from the Bay Area- this is a serious question.

Apartments in SF now are $1800 / studio - $2200 / 1br. so... $100k: - $30k taxes - $24k rent - $12k food and misc ------------- $34k $34k is about what you have to play with for investing, transportation, entertainment, fitness, saving, student loans, other debt

Anyone working at a startup should be maxing out their retirement plan contributions: $18,000 for a 401k, $5,500 for an IRA.

They are a hedge against startup failure.

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

#584

Post by throwaway183839 »

siglesias wrote: post #431
abeppu wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you work at a startup, you're acting like an investor but investing your time instead of your money. True, except: (a) An employee can probably only work for one startup at a time, and begins vesting after a year. That's like asking an investor to bet on at most 1 company per year. (b) Employers tend to give substantially less detailed information about their business, financials, etc to prospective employees…

Diversification only lowers risk. The expected value doesn't change.

Everyone has a personal tolerance for risk. If you are diversified, then you decrease the risks that you are exposed to - possibly below your personal risk tolerance. That allows you to use leverage to increase your risk back up to your tolerance, which also increased your expected return.

So yes, diversification (plus leverage) absolutely increases expected value, if you hold risk a constant.

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

#586

Post by jcdavis »

suyash wrote: post #563
epicureanideal wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of land if you build vertically instead of flat. There's a bunch of 2-4 story buildings that could be 10-20+ story buildings.

Right but this is not China, we need to follow guidelines as bay area is earthquake prone.

Earthquake concerns are a red herring, the lack of height is entirely self-inflicted. We know how to build tall buildings safely, but choose not to

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

#587

Post by FiatLuxDave »

There are a number of questions on here about remote/non-US/non-SV startups, and whether there is any place in YC for these.

Based upon my experience in the 90s running a DFJ funded startup which was located in Florida, I completely understand why YC would not want to try to do startup advising non-locally. Some things are hard enough to explain or understand even when you are there in person.

That said, YC also has the HN community, which includes many non-local founders and potential founders. For many of these founders, the YC value proposition may not meet their needs. This might be because of YC requirements (3 months, $/equity ratio) or because of Silicon Valley issues (I hear the rent may be too high). Either way, YC has an audience of potential founders which its primary product is currently not addressing.

Although YC is not lacking for applications, there seems to also be a case of unmet demand here. Do you have any prospective plans which would interest the non-SV HNer? HN is a network that seems to have some value to those of us in the hinterland, but perhaps this network of people could offer value back to YC as more than just interlocutors?

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

#588

Post by DavidSJ »

siglesias wrote: post #431
abeppu wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you work at a startup, you're acting like an investor but investing your time instead of your money. True, except: (a) An employee can probably only work for one startup at a time, and begins vesting after a year. That's like asking an investor to bet on at most 1 company per year. (b) Employers tend to give substantially less detailed information about their business, financials, etc to prospective employees…

Diversification only lowers risk. The expected value doesn't change.

Given diminishing marginal utility of wealth, diversification increases expected utility, even if not expected wealth.

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

#589

Post by davidw »

tchock23 wrote: post #444
sama wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really prefer at least two founders, but it's not a deal-breaker. We funded Drew Houston of Dropbox as a solo founder, but he got a cofounder before the batch started. A bad cofounder is far, far worse than no cofounder. I'd spend maybe 20% of your time looking for a cofounder, and the rest on your business. But don't force a cofounder if you don't have a good, organic option. The more progress you make on the bus…

I help out as a mentor at an accelerator in upstate NY. Unfortunately, we see solo founders rushing to find a co-founder just to go through accelerator programs. I wish your reply was shared widely with anyone applying to any accelerator anywhere...

I think of this concept as the 'cargo cult cofounder':

http://journal.dedasys.com/2015/03/20/the-cargo-cult-cofound...

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

#590

Post by pbreit »

mbym wrote: post #207

Question re solo founders: "A startup is too much work for one person" and if you can't convince even one friend to join you, that doesn't speak well for your idea! On the other hand, a bad hire/partnership can ruin the company. YC gives signal it really prefers to look at teams than individual applications. Q: Do you have have advice or rules of thumb re how much time a solo founder should put into finding partner(s…

I think you're still missing the importance of the cofounder. It's to demonstrate that you are able to convince at least one single person to join you on the journey. Running a startup is basically one continuous stream of persuasion. Persuading customers. Persuading recruits. Persuading investors. Persuading employees. Persuading investors. Persuading the media. Etc. Etc. Building product, while fun, is easy (in most cases). Being able to persuade lots of people to row your boat in the direction you want is singularly difficult. Until you persuade that one person to join your pursuit, it's extremely difficult to think you have the skills of persuasion necessary to carry out the nearly impossible task of starting a startup.
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