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YC 120

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC 120

#71

Post by gervaisbmp »

my cynical side says that this is a "dinner for schmucks".

The exclusivity and filtering process ...geeze "finally solving physics?" could just as easily be "building a scaled down community humanoid-mouse-dolls to model future civilization? - apply now!"

gaawd.

Why not host a larger open conference and figure out how to provide an option for financial assistance - sure there would have to be a needs based filter for financial assistance, but I'm not convinced the current filter questions would produce better than random. (any thoughts on this?)

Re: YC 120

#72

Post by dang »

d--b wrote: post #11

> Aside from some basic information, all you need to do to apply is submit a one-minute video with answers to these three questions: > What are you interested in and what are you working on? > What have you done so far that shows your potential for greatness, adjusted for whatever life circumstances you were born into? > In a best-case scenario, what do you want your obituary to say? Ugh... what a terrible selection…

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: YC 120

#74

Post by erbium »

dang wrote: post #72
d--b wrote: post #11

> Aside from some basic information, all you need to do to apply is submit a one-minute video with answers to these three questions: > What are you interested in and what are you working on? > What have you done so far that shows your potential for greatness, adjusted for whatever life circumstances you were born into? > In a best-case scenario, what do you want your obituary to say? Ugh... what a terrible selection…

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

People eventually get tired of giving useful feedback to unhelpful people. Maybe that's a piece of advice someone should share with sama sama.

Re: YC 120

#75

Post by rococode »

jimkri wrote: post #70

This reminds me of charities and other organizations that only want to bring on experts. I really would like to join something like this but I feel that I'm not an expert in that area. I know I could provide a lot of value and show them ways to look at their problems differently, but I'm not what they are looking for. I really think people can become experts (to a certain degree) and provide a lot of value and think…

Wow, I hadn't heard of the 4chan thing and it's super interesting!

Here's the wiki article with the improved lower bound for the 25 year old permutation problem: http://mathsci.wikia.com/wiki/The_Haruhi_Problem

And a news article: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18019464/4chan-anon-anim...

Here's the original thread where you can see people confused about what the actual problem is, I think it's a fun read: http://4watch.org/superstring/

Re: YC 120

#76

Post by andyidsinga »

curious to know who the "20 people who are already at the top of their fields" are.

...wondering why they wouldn't publish that so that folks who apply have a better idea who they'll be spending time with.

Re: YC 120

#77

Post by eslaught »

For everyone who's being cynical about this opportunity: This seems like a great way to practice pitching what you do and why it matters. Personally, this seems like an interesting exercise, regardless of whether you get in or not.

For anyone else who is interested, it might be fun to have an organized "Show HN" where we exchange and critique pitches.

Edit: Since this is getting some upvotes, here is what I propose: I'll post a "Show HN" here at around 10am PST on February 15th. People can reply to that with links to their pitches, and then everyone else can respond/critique in the replies. (This should leave enough time for people to edit their pitches based on the feedback they get.)

Re: YC 120

#78

Post by sudosteph »

rubidium wrote: post #47

WHEW! Sama's worldview is so technocractic it's rather disturbing. The world is _actually_ shaped by mothers and fathers. Teachers and physical therapists. Doctors and pastors. Friends and romantic partners. ... I hesitate to write the following because I'm not going to express everything how I actually think. But it should add to the discussion... Here's an interesting spin on it. I'll give my "real" answers and my…

Personally, I'd prefer a dinner with real you over techno-centric you any day.

Though I do wonder if YC at this point could even select for authenticity, empathy, and genuine pro-social goodness if they even tried. We all know that you need to keep your audience in mind when writing. How many applicants sincerely view the YC audience they would be writing here for as anything other than mega-capitalists with a fetish for "disruption"? (I know I'm being unkind to some decent people who work there, but this stereotype isn't too far off base).

A system that only filters on "who is most likely to be able to disrupt industries and seize income for themselves and investors" will never be able to differentiate between good and bad people. At best, the bad ones will only be selfish, at worst, they will abuse their power and make the world a worse place because it is profitable to them.

I agree with your concerns completely on the issues with technocracy. I'm going to focus on making my own community stronger and building out my networks with people that would have been missed by the VC meat grinder. I may still fail at fixing big problems like I want - but at least my conscience will be clean knowing I wasn't complicit in making things worse.

Re: YC 120

#79

Post by throwawaymath »

jimkri wrote: post #70

This reminds me of charities and other organizations that only want to bring on experts. I really would like to join something like this but I feel that I'm not an expert in that area. I know I could provide a lot of value and show them ways to look at their problems differently, but I'm not what they are looking for. I really think people can become experts (to a certain degree) and provide a lot of value and think…

> A great example is the 4Chan user that solved the 25 year old permutation math problem by looking at it from a different lense.

To be precise, the anonymous user did not solve the problem. They lowered the bound on the set of possible solutions.

EDIT: I realized this isn't sufficiently precise either...the user increased the lower bound of the set of solutions. What I originally said could be interpreted as the upper bound being decreased. That's not the case.

Re: YC 120

#80

Post by andyidsinga »

eslaught wrote: post #77

For everyone who's being cynical about this opportunity: This seems like a great way to practice pitching what you do and why it matters. Personally, this seems like an interesting exercise, regardless of whether you get in or not. For anyone else who is interested, it might be fun to have an organized "Show HN" where we exchange and critique pitches. Edit: Since this is getting some upvotes, here is what I propose:…

the organized Show HN event - actually sounds like a better idea that the OP. hmm - maybe organized for the same April 26 - 28 weekend?
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