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Ways YC has changed in the last year

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Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#81

Post by VirusNewbie »

dehrmann wrote: post #48
steveBK123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was determined the same way FAANG, Banks, and others have determined in-person is best: "haha, the economy is slowing, get back to the office you F*(&# losers". Absolutely breathtaking level of cynicism from executive class that as soon as interest rates went up, hiring market cooled, and the power balance between workers & bosses swung back their way, suddenly in-office was "most productive". 100% vibes and "beca…

You didn't actually give an alternative reason for why FAANGs and banks are doing this. Some also obviously don't hold for YC (real estate losses).

It’s easier to make blanket rules than do performance mgmt for managers.

If data shows some % of the company has been completely slacking off with WFH (or over employed etc) you could either hold mgmt accountable (but how? Fire all VPs for letting that happen? Fire all line managers?) or just make blanket policies…

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#82

Post by r_singh »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

The adjacent possible theory comes to mind

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#83

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

The underlying assumptions in this post don't really make sense for an organization like YC.

It's probably a good idea for YC to have some thesis about which technologies will be big, and "AI" is probably a good bet. The entire point of investing in so many AI startups is that I'm quite sure YC expects the vast, vast majority to fail (for various definitions of "fail"). But I think most people believe that there will be very few winners in the AI space (like pretty much all the other tech spaces over the past 20 years), so the biggest fears of someone like a YC is not getting in in those one or two AI companies that made it big.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#84

Post by asah »

7e wrote: post #61
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One trick pony? They have created 5-10% of all unicorns in existence

Huh? The founders created these companies. YC just convinced these founders to give away a big share of their companies for almost nothing, in return for cult lulz. Accelerators are exploitative.

strong language, but there's a mathematical proof against:

- company X raises at $Y valuation before YC

- company X raises at $Z valuation after YC

- if Z / Y > YC dilution then YC is a good value

Z/Y > dilution in virtually all cases.

Sorry, but life isn't fair.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#85

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

neilv wrote: post #30

> We've now tried every point on the spectrum: fully remote, hybrid and fully in-person. So now we don't have to worry if we're being luddites: in-person YC just really is the best. How was this determined to be best? (Obviously, they haven't controlled for variables like the switch to 4 smaller batches, and the high percentage of startups all doing one exciting thing (AI). And do they realize the costs. And is it be…

YC doesn't exactly need to do double-blinded controlled studies to come to some conclusions.

I'm sure they get lots of feedback from the companies in a batch, not to mention the partners' own assessments of how things work. It seems entirely reasonable to me then, after they did have different sessions with different configurations, to point to particular points and say "in-person just worked way better".

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#86

Post by eropple »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
ShamelessC wrote: post #6

> Before covid, founders often asked us to run YC remotely so that they would't have to move to SF to participate. We never did…[we feel justified in our decision] Completely ignoring the founders who still have to move, apparently?

And not the most elegant display of the power dynamic between investors and founders, to put it mildly. Note that this self selects for people able and willing to jump through hoops for their investors.

Having a family or a house or a dog simply means you are not hardcore enough, woo.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#87

Post by nzoschke »

mentos wrote: post #26

Would have liked to read why in person is better. I imagine the biggest reason is it raises the sense of commitment for everyone involved.

This is my hypothesis too.

I participated in YC S15.

We all quit our jobs, and my co-founders moved to from Atlanta to SF for the summer, we rented a big house as a live/work space, and drove together to Mountain View the required few times a week. We went to a lot of optional things together like additional office hours, parties, meetups, together and in person.

That level of commitment and pretty much daily face to face working time is powerful.

It's not possible for everyone given circumstances, and its not sustainable forever. But that means that the teams that can and do opt into a summer like this are very committed to their idea.

So it's not hard to imagine it's "better" to relocate for a stretch of something hard like getting a business off the ground than doing it all fully distributed.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#88

Post by eropple »

jmye wrote: post #79
xwdv wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what data exactly? Gut feelings? What could be faster than communications across vast distances at the speed of light?

For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement. For other problems? Sure, slack and zoom are perfectly adequate to preferable.

> For some problems? 15 minutes with a whiteboard. There’s no good e-replacement.

People say this, but FigJam or even Microsoft Whiteboard work fantastically for this if you've equipped your team with the right hardware. I often sit down with people and noodle through problems on an iPad (and for me at least the Pencil is required) with FigJam in a low-friction manner.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#89

Post by latchkey »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #54
__jonas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps my only criticism would be of their artificial hampering of some of their products, which they do in order to appease certain PC gamers by excluding the gaming market from usual supply/demand effects Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I thought Nvidia is outpricing their PC gamer customers because of their focus on AI? I’m curious how they have hampered their products in your opinion.

Here's one reference: https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Lock-Broken My reading of the saga is that the cryptocurrency mining bubble was causing huge demands for Nvidia GPUs as parallel processors (with ASICS for mining only starting to appear at this point). This meant that GPUs were being priced-out of the market for most PC gamers, as it was always profitable for cryptocurrency miners to buy more of them. Nvidia…

That lock was broken with the NVIDIA leak.

H100's were not used for mining.

Regardless, in general, there is little demand for GPUs for mining any longer after ETH switched to PoS.

Re: Ways YC has changed in the last year

#90

Post by slg »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #10

It's a risky investment strategy to put so much emphasis on AI startups. Not only do you have the already volatile nature of early-stage software companies (which YC is of course used to), but this is a bet on whether machine learning, chiefly LLMs, are going to continue to outperform other technologies and become sustainable to run. There's no question in my mind that 'Open'AI is subsidizing the vast majority of LLM…

Jared made the comparison to S06 and it might be interesting to note that was the worst performing class in YC history in terms of percentage outcomes for each company. 73% of those companies are dead, 9% are still alive, and 18% got exits[1]. Although YC almost certainly cares more about money than percentage outcomes and one of those exits was Zynga buying OMGPop, so YC probably views that class as a success. Seems like they are taking on more risk for greater upside.

[1] - https://www.ycdb.co/

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