I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by tehansen » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 4:14 AM UTC

jfarmer wrote: post #598

sama wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is for sure something about in-person interaction that cannot be replaced by any current technology. Alan Kay recently told me he thinks it's something biological. Our model just doesn't work well for people that can't move to the valley for 3 months. Remote work is good in many cases, but early-stage startup advising is not one of them.

There's evidence that babies acquire phonemes when "taught" in-person differently than via video: http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius... (this topic starts at about 7m08s)

wow, very awesome link. As someone who grew up in Germany, speaking Danish at home, then moved to the US when I turned 19 to go to college, and is now getting to watch my 2 pre-schoolers learn absolute insane amounts of things in such short timespans this definitely resonated!

In a lot of ways, startups are like parenting I guess. Certainly parenting is another example of an activity that depends absolutely on physical presence :P

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

#672

Post by nwenzel » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 4:31 AM UTC

alain94040 wrote: post #199

sama wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That got a quick involuntary shudder out of me.

Maybe a more founder-friendly way to rephrase this, rather than an IPO with the public: have you considered opening crowdfunding so that the startup community self-funds the next YC semesters? I'm sure there would be quite some demand. Implementation could be as simple as a syndicate on AngelList for instance.

WeFunder offers the ability to invest in YC (and non-YC) startups.

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

#673

Post by jsmthrowaway » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:02 AM UTC

impendia wrote: post #642

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Red Pill an organization of freedom fighters? We're comparing feminists to ISIS now? Genuine, generalized anger against women? What are you upset about, that it's fallen out of favor to feel up a woman at a bar without permission before you begin a courtship that ends with her in the kitchen as your property with your dinner on the table at 5:30? Upset that you can't give her two black eyes for finishing dinner a…

I am a pretty strong feminist, and agree that a comparison to ISIS is far off base. Nevertheless, I believe that one reason for the backlash against feminism is the perception that feminists are spiteful and would rather argue against straw men and make ad hominem attacks than actually argue their point of view. Actually, I've found that most feminists are surprisingly patient and eager to explain their point of view…

No. I will not back down from calling spades spades because I represent no group, only speak for myself, and I am under no obligation to alter my views or politicize my actions because of vague backlash reasons (you interestingly avoided telling me why you were urging me throughout that entire comment, if you read carefully).

You might have identified a box into which to label and place me, but I assure you that I remain independent of all labels; my opinions are not based in feminism, yet our views happen to align in this case. I am not championing a cause that requires me to convert anyone. I am calling a representative of The Red Pill an idiot for attempting a cogent argument in their defense on Hacker News. If I were defending feminism, I'd be operating much differently.

Attachment to a group and worrying about the group is a prison from speaking about what is important to you in your own way.

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

#674

Post by pariya » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:03 AM UTC

SO MAD I MISSED THIS!!!

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

#675

Post by jsmthrowaway » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:11 AM UTC

dropit_sphere wrote: post #658

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Red Pill an organization of freedom fighters? We're comparing feminists to ISIS now? Genuine, generalized anger against women? What are you upset about, that it's fallen out of favor to feel up a woman at a bar without permission before you begin a courtship that ends with her in the kitchen as your property with your dinner on the table at 5:30? Upset that you can't give her two black eyes for finishing dinner a…

I'm not really interested in defending the subreddit. I am attempting to add a dash of reality: hate speech cannot be eliminated by clamping down on any particular subreddit. There will always be somewhere on the internet for people to express hateful, offensive views. Of course, that's exactly the kind of thing a misogynist would say. And you could make a case that just because you can't stamp the stuff out entirely…

I absolutely agree with this entire comment and laud that perspective, regardless of how this thread started.

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

#676

Post by tedsanders » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:16 AM UTC

latj wrote: post #376

sama wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup,…

>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.

I'm a Stanford graduate student. I earn about $30k per year, or $2,500 per month. Rent is about $1,000 per month. Food is about $200 per month. Taxes are about $300 month. So my three primary costs are $1,500 per month, leaving $1,000 per month in savings and discretionary spending. I'm flabbergasted that people think $100k is not enough money to live. It's way, way above the median wage here.

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

#677

Post by shrig94 » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:23 AM UTC

tashmahalic wrote: post #458

sama wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'd be good to do this, but that the startup scene is really broken in Boston for many other reasons. I'm not very optimistic this would be enough to fix it.

How else is the startup scene broken in Boston?

Boston's startup scene is dominated by MBAs who think hackers are cogs you put red bull in to get code out and technical cofounders are only worth 5% of the company. I think YC actually has done a lot to change this in the last few years as someone who interacts with the scene often, though these MBAs will never go away.

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

#678

Post by imh » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:41 AM UTC

jpmcglone wrote: post #399

sama wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup,…

I interviewed for a company once that had different kinds of offers, ranging from low-salary/high-equity, to high-salary/low-equity. I thought that was an interesting idea :D They had 5 options total, and the middle option wasn't awful. I'd like to see more of this in the valley.

I've heard of saying: "Valuing options at $x/share, we'll give you $y divided however you want between equity and salary."

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

#679

Post by imh » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:47 AM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #442

siglesias wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sir/Madam, that is incorrect. Diversification can easily lower expected value, or raise it. It should maximize your signal to noise ratio, if properly done.

I believe the definition they are using is something like: given a random process X for your percent return, if you invest in n nths of your money into iid copies of X, you will get the same expectation, but with smaller variance compared to putting it all into one copy of X. That's diversification.

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

#680

Post by robryan » Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 5:51 AM UTC

hootener wrote: post #608

jpmcglone wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed for a company once that had different kinds of offers, ranging from low-salary/high-equity, to high-salary/low-equity. I thought that was an interesting idea :D They had 5 options total, and the middle option wasn't awful. I'd like to see more of this in the valley.

We do this, but use a sliding scale. The middle of the scale is what's locally considered to be a fair salary and fair equity compensation for whatever role we're hiring for. The equity / salary offered at each end of the scale tends to fluctuate depending on the impact of the role. So far it's worked out well. I think potential hires like the flexibility because it lets them optimize for larger short term gain (a hi…

I wonder with these arrangements, is there any pressure or implied pressure on people to accept a larger equity amount? Similar to the issue with unlimited vacation time.