french, unemployed guy here.
I envy you guys
Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
91–100 of 100 posts
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#92Guess this one looks like a post enthusiasm state but here is what I think is going on lately (Disclaimer: I am an entrepreneur, I feel this, so please take it all with a pinch of salt): It seems that the race to get into a coveted program like YC has become crowded. Almost every other startup that I met during last one year (50 odd in two cycles) had applied to the YC program [premise-A], some gotten the interview […
"Given that the size of batches have gone up, I do believe that number of sentences exchanged with PG/partners per startup must have gone down." I didn't read this whole comment, but that part at least is false, because we've hired new partners at a higher rate than batches have grown. We now have 5 people doing for 50-startup batches what I used to do alone for 20-startup batches.
This assumes the other 4 are PG quality. Not saying they're not, of course.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can accelerate the growth of your business by taking VC money and hiring more people, why wouldn't you? Brooks' Law, for one thing. I if I was in the situation you describe, I would try more to use the money to buy time, not so much people.
That makes no sense. By definition, if you can accelerate the growth of your business by hiring more people, then it is a case in which Brook's Law doesn't apply. It is a common misconception that Brook's Law applies to all software projects. It does not. I can think of several real situations where it does not.
"Growth of your business" is a particularly nebulous term in this (your?) equation, can you clarify how it applies in this context?
Is it possible you're identifying a follow-on effect where funding would allow a company to buy both headcount and time with which to get the new people up to speed? Making a late project later is only an observation, and speaks nothing to how hard or soft (invented) deadlines might be within a particular company.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one really cares about the video quality for this; a webcam is fine, and a phone is probably fine. And overproduced video is horrible. I'd just stick to making sure the audio can be easily understood, and making sure it is about a minute; if there is a lot of wasted time in the beginning, edit that out.
It seems (at least from your HN profile) that you're a founder, not a YC partner, but yet you're giving advice as if you have seen some of the videos that have been submitted by YC applicants. So I'm just curious now... are you or are you not a YC partner?
I'm not a partner at YC (as far as I know all the YC partners who were alumni were from fairly early batches, and also had exits; I have a YC funded company which is ongoing).
The relevant detail here is that I've had ~20-30 people/yr ask for advice on applications, and aside from "be concise and straightforward; emphasize your strengths in every answer; be clear and don't assume people will have the patience to decode some rhetorical trick", "wtf, I can't see your video because you left it as 'private'" and "I can't actually hear your audio" are common.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#95It’s because of this power law: If a company has a 1 percent chance of being a hundred-billion-dollar company, then it’s worth about a billion dollars Really, is this a power law? Looks to me like a simplistic application of expected value.
I was explaining both the power law distribution and expected value, and somehow that all got mushed together into one quote, incorrectly unfortunately.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#96It’s because of this power law: If a company has a 1 percent chance of being a hundred-billion-dollar company, then it’s worth about a billion dollars Really, is this a power law? Looks to me like a simplistic application of expected value.
Also nobody really has even a 1% chance at becoming a 100B company. There have been very few of those in human history, the odds are << 1% even for a top YC company.
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Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#97Amazing article! What I find particularly interesting in this is not that it highlights how awesome YC is and all that talk (I'm not saying that YC isn't awesome, I'm much inclined to believe that it is) but how startups offer a way for individuals to work with that they like more and how more and more people are embracing entrepreneurship and how technology plays such an important field in this.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#98pg, did this article accurately portray the YC process?
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#99It’s because of this power law: If a company has a 1 percent chance of being a hundred-billion-dollar company, then it’s worth about a billion dollars Really, is this a power law? Looks to me like a simplistic application of expected value.
I was explaining both the power law distribution and expected value, and somehow that all got mushed together into one quote, incorrectly unfortunately.
Yep, a classic case of broken telephone -- thanks for the clarification.
Re: Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine
#100Probably the best article about YC I have read. Not sure if that's saying much given how many I read, but perhaps it is :)
I agree, it was beautifully written. I'll be looking for Mr. Rich's novel on the strength of it.
He's actually Frank Rich's son, so if you like his father, you'll probably take a liking to Nate's prose, too.