Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

slidetocode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#61

Post by wissler »

kalininalex wrote: post #28
wissler wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Jobs had to be lucky enough for Apple to nearly go bankrupt so they would entertain having him return and turn them around. This cosmically lucky event is not very reproducible.

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 him returning to Apple, which is what I was talking about.

Yes, he would have been a successful person regardless. Indeed, he was a successful person already. But he was very lucky to be allowed back at Apple.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#62

Post by ThomPete »

afterburner wrote: post #53
ThomPete wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course but that isn't the same IMHO

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#63

Post by calydon »

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…

I agree with you completely but you're omitting that Steve & Steve and Richard, and almost all the mythical entrepreneurial successes had found a way to fire their boss and landlord (in some form) so that they could focus on what they do best. Everyone's situation is different so if making an early YC exit is your method (or plan) to achieve this then it shouldn't be gainsayed.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

brandonb wrote: post #58

>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…

[deleted]

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#65

Post by JumpCrisscross »

webwright wrote: post #52
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…

Do we have empirical data that YC doesn't get most of its returns from incremental exits? I thought that the hallmark of the YC model was its diversification along the long tail of founders, freeing it from the 10-bagger trap of traditional VC.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#66

Post by acgourley »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65
webwright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do we have empirical data that YC doesn't get most of its returns from incremental exits? I thought that the hallmark of the YC model was its diversification along the long tail of founders, freeing it from the 10-bagger trap of traditional VC.

Yes - http://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator/Which-are-the-most-success... (cliff notes: airbnb / dropbox are the bulk of returns)

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#68

Post by MaysonL »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #30
ezequiel-garzon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"YC would not be around if Apple wasn't started when it was" How did you draw that conclusion?

I'm guessing they are making an assumption that without Apple personal computers would never have take off and we would still be stuck in mainframe hell.

No: if Apple hadn't happened, personal computing would have flourished anyway. Intel might not have been so dominant in the µprocessor market, as the IBM PC was a panic response to Apple's success, and IBM's scientific PC, based on a Motorola 68K chip, might have taken a larger market share.

See Ted Nelson's book Computer Lib/Dream Machines for more on the state of personal computing prior to the start of Apple.

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#69

Post by bobsil1 »

brandonb wrote: post #58

>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…

Their application used to ask the lowest price you'd be willing to sell for. Seemed really focused on quick flips.

  If one wanted to buy you three months in (August 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html

Re: Would Steve Jobs have applied to Y Combinator?

#70

Post by nkassis »

microtonal wrote: post #23
JVIDEL wrote: post #11

Both Apple and Microsoft started at a time when personal computers barely existed and thus a couple of guys with very little capital could build a computer kit or code a blackjack game in a day. One key difference its revenue: Allen often mentions how any piece of code brought money to the company, simple apps that are 100% free today would have been sold for tens of millions back then. Same with hardware, which is w…

Were in they right place at the right time, or did they mold the future to such an extreme, that in hindsight it seems as if they were in the right place at the right time?

I don't think so because you have to remember that there was a lot of other companies at the time working in the same space. Just an example would be Commodore that was actually much more successful in the 80s than Apple. There were many others with similar ideas.

Obviously these companies lasted while others disappeared due to bad management, competition etc... It's hard to say that without Apple and Microsoft, the micro-computer revolution would not still have occurred.

Post reply on HN