The average yc founder in this batch is about 30, but the average college/university graduate is much younger than that. What did a successful 30 yr old applicant do for those 8ish years after graduating?
What game can I play?
I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
691–700 of 757 posts
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#692Is YC India in your plans ?
I want YC Pakistan then :D
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#693Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The more progress you make on the business, the easier it will be to get a great cofounder. I am not trying to be pedantic...but are they really a cofounder if you've hashed out the idea and made progress on the business prior to their involvement? It's an important question in my mind, because a cofounder typically receives far more equity than virtually anyone else that becomes involved with the business after it…
It would disqualify nearly all cofounders of famous startups if they had to form the company before one of them made progress on the idea. For example: Steve Wozniak built the original Apple I attending Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Steve Jobs saw the prototype, realized it would be huge, and then talked Woz into founding a business around it. Larry Page had started Google as a doctoral research project to downloa…
"Mark Zuckerburg created FashMash and then Facebook and had some early traction among his house at Harvard before convincing his cofounders to join."
I don't think it went down quite like that? I just can't let that little dude slip into history as the brilliant, modern day Jobs, or Gates. In my mind, he capitalized on someone else's idea--with the help of a lot of people, and got very lucky. Whenever I(under a pseudonym) use his site, I wonder why there isn't more competition. I sometimes think the very act of stealing someone's idea/site is the reason for Facebook's success? "I better not question that new hire--I'm not sure I even belong here? I was wrong on mobile? Maybe I should just follow their advice?"
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would disqualify nearly all cofounders of famous startups if they had to form the company before one of them made progress on the idea. For example: Steve Wozniak built the original Apple I attending Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Steve Jobs saw the prototype, realized it would be huge, and then talked Woz into founding a business around it. Larry Page had started Google as a doctoral research project to downloa…
"Mark Zuckerburg created FashMash and then Facebook and had some early traction among his house at Harvard before convincing his cofounders to join." I don't think it went down quite like that? I just can't let that little dude slip into history as the brilliant, modern day Jobs, or Gates. In my mind, he capitalized on someone else's idea--with the help of a lot of people, and got very lucky. Whenever I(under a pseud…
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates also capitalized on someone else's idea. The "idea" is just one factor on a very complex equation.
Take a look at this great movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#695Earlier 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.
The second tallest structure in the world (the Tokyo Skytree[1]) is in Tokyo, which is even more earthquake prone than the Bay Area[2].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Skytree
[2] http://www.fastcoexist.com/3017696/the-cities-most-at-risk-t...
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The one time I got that kind of offer, I got a lot of pressure from the hiring manager to take the most equity possible. They basically insinuated that doing otherwise was disloyal -- although, they cloaked the message in a super-positive tone, saying something like, "we are always really stoked when new hires choose the most equity possible because they believe in the mission". I know those words might sound squishy but trust me, there was no ambiguity about what they meant.
In retrospect I wish I had taken the higher salary.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#697Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a good answer for this! Go work at a breakout medium sized tech company (i.e. a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand people). You'll meet lots of potential cofounders. The people that are attracted to these companies are usually 1) really good and 2) interested in starting a company down the line.
This is my plan B and it's heartening to hear you share this view.
I'm heading off to B-school later this year. It'll be relatively cheap for me (non-US location) and I got into the top school in the country. Would this be a good place to meet founders, because I have the same dilemma as you - too many friends who are not interested in building businesses.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#698What's the most exciting non-traditional segment (bio, energy, manufacturing, etc) you're looking forward to funding startups in?
I imagine each partner will have different answers. One thing I say is that we should be willing to fund anything that could be a $10B company, and that is such a difficult restriction we shouldn't have any other restriction. Personally, I am very interested in nuclear energy and solar (I think energy is the highest-impact single thing to fix--it's remarkable how many other problems reduce to the energy problem), bio…
What do you think about wind energy? A leading wind energy company here in India just had a $160M IPO here and it was oversubscribed. Wind is also growing faster than solar in large parts of the world.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#699Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The more progress you make on the business, the easier it will be to get a great cofounder. I am not trying to be pedantic...but are they really a cofounder if you've hashed out the idea and made progress on the business prior to their involvement? It's an important question in my mind, because a cofounder typically receives far more equity than virtually anyone else that becomes involved with the business after it…
It would disqualify nearly all cofounders of famous startups if they had to form the company before one of them made progress on the idea. For example: Steve Wozniak built the original Apple I attending Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Steve Jobs saw the prototype, realized it would be huge, and then talked Woz into founding a business around it. Larry Page had started Google as a doctoral research project to downloa…
Why not use a vesting scheme.
Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
#700With you recently leading a round of investment for reddit, it seems you are quite optimistic about its success but as of late 2013 (and maybe now too), Reddit remains in red even after nearly a decade of its inception[1]. Reddit CEO once said, that ads are the reasons Digg failed[2], so I believe the site would be wary of using ads to the fullest. How do you think Reddit would become profitable and would be able to…
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.
This explains quite a bit when it comes to YC tending to not give a fair shot to companies whose business model hinges on/around creating [a] niche community.
It occurred to me recently (before reading this comment) that the idea I applied to YC with would probably be very successful as a subreddit. Which of course would be great for Reddit ... because a growing company is a cannibalistic company. But if it _were_ a subreddit, I'd essentially be forced into volunteering on it full-time for an idea that was making Conde-Naste all the money. The critical mass of ~1 billion would for sure allow Advance P to throw its weight and influence just about anywhere... like any of the media conglomerates.
But I'm just not a fan of monopolies or any clustered niches operating under a corporate umbrella. Even one whose motives are supposedly as democratic as Reddit's.