91–100 of 127 posts
Pickle is one of the most egregious examples, but I've noticed a trend of these fly-by-night operations with YC backing getting found out as frauds over the last handful of years. I don't know if it's happening more or if I just wasn't aware of them or if the rate was the same but people started talking about them more.
“ Some say YC is now big enough that it has a self-fulfilling distortion effect where the best founders in the world know they should all apply to YC first before they talk to any other startup accelerators or investors.” That’s an interesting point but I have to imagine all the worst founders know it too so the filtering may not have gotten easier. I’d be curious to hear from them.
They majorly select a kind of founders as a first filter (good engineers from good companies, ivy league, ex founders etc.), and then they look into the ideas as a second filter, and the third and the least important is the process in which they just spend 15 minutes interviewing and maybe another 15 minutes looking into the application.
There's also another way in that circumvents all the other filters - being a founder at an existing startup that has really good traction already. You can have a resume of no-name companies, no degree, and never have founded a company before, but if your business is growing, making money, and looks wildly scalable with YC's support then you can get in that way.
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VC math follows a power law and expects almost all investments to flop, and the one winner to pay for it all. The question here is not about the flops it’s: are the winners big enough?
And now that they're eliminating diversity in their investments are you still certain they will pick the next generation's winners? All they're investing in are AI companies... Once upon a time someone like me for whom engineering competence is a core aspect of my identity would have never considered turning my back on YC. But now I'm just embarrassed by them. The things they now think are the only things worth inves…
YC just so happens to invest super early in small teams.
So the overlap of YC and AI is inevitable. AI is not an investment genre per se but it can be used to accelerate or improve any ecosystem if used carefully and cleverly.
Since my Humble Bundle days, I’ve always been partial to small companies and small dev studios. Not all EGG companies use AI but they are all keeping tabs on the technology. Mitch Lasky has said that AI may have opened a window in which small studios may have their best shot at outsized success in recent history. Eventually the big dogs will catch up and adopt the new tech themselves but right now David has a shot at Goliath.
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I don't think that's possible and frankly I'd much prefer capital not even try. To the best of my knowledge, the only games which generate the really outsized outcomes you'd need for a VC portfolio do really gross, anti-player shit (gacha, lootboxes, whale fishing, etc.) to get it. Or they become distribution monopolies like Valve, which is fine-ish when Valve is private but would be a ongoing catastrophe if it had b…
I appreciate this perspective.. but I think there might be a false dichotomy here. Some of the biggest gaming success stories didn't rely on exploitative mechanics - Minecraft, Among Us, even Fortnite's initial success was based on solid gameplay before the monetization kicked in. The question is whether you can build sustainable platforms that create genuine value rather than just extracting it. Steam takes 30% but…
Given the argument around YC effectively "cancelling" naughty list founders. The John Wick Excommunicado poster for illustration is an interesting choice because John Wick is the hero of the series and is constantly being threatened by the institution that both created and emancipated him only to try to destroy him later. Not sure how intentional, but Reeves himself is beloved figure and often noted as a paragon of h…
PG does say he actually looks for “naughty” founders as one of the key filtering traits. I link this essay in my post.
But you still have to be ethical and do what you say or it won’t be possible to grow your business long term.
The gamer in me wonders if the “ideal founder” can be described as “chaotic good”?
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The industry has experienced slowed growth and is restructuring which is scary for many people right now. There have been continuous layoffs and studio closures. That sucks (though is not all caused by AI). But a few quick thoughts: Video games have always been about cutting edge technology. Because they are interactive, they are best positioned to leverage AI tech. (unlike static media) Prototyping tends to be the m…
>Because they are interactive, they are best positioned to leverage AI tech. You have not supported this argument. On the contrary, I think LLMs are not a big help. We've already been here. Procedural generation was the magical solution that was supposed to help a single dev make giant worlds. And it did. It helped you make giant, utterly empty and soulless worlds. Great for minecraft. Not so great for No Mans Sky, a…
However, I’ll say that as a result of their AI integration they are also doing way more human writing in the form of prompts and other procedural elements than if they just used old fashioned dialog trees.
I think AI can only be used as an enhancement in certain specific and controlled ways.
One mistake I see a lot right now is the assumption that you can delegate design and creative direction to AI. I think that generally yields slop. In fact I think the Creative Director/design role at a game studio may be the hardest digital job for an AI to replace. I had the opportunity to express that idea to Sam Altman once and he did refute it.
This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea. This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may…
I'm a huge fan of Mission Command. If you want to read more, I'd recommend the Army's official doc on it: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34403-ADP_6-... (it's 110 pages but you really only need to read Chapter 1). This was eye-opening. I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down, but a friend who was an officer explained this to me and pointed me to the literature. It was fasc…
Sounds like damage control.
This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea. This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may…
> In war the first principle is to disobey orders. Any fool can obey an order. He ought to have gone on, had he the slightest Nelsonic temperament in him.
This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea. This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may…
I'm a huge fan of Mission Command. If you want to read more, I'd recommend the Army's official doc on it: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34403-ADP_6-... (it's 110 pages but you really only need to read Chapter 1). This was eye-opening. I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down, but a friend who was an officer explained this to me and pointed me to the literature. It was fasc…