I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA • Hacker News Board

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#91

Post by sama » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

mallyvai wrote: post #29

What'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), biotech, AI, education, healthcare, and online communities.

Interestingly, those first three categories are also where I think the biggest dangers to humanity are. High-risk high-reward, I guess.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#92

Post by go1979 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

What does YC think of founders who are working on a project on the side (of their job), wanting to turn it into a startup? I presume there are lots of people who have day jobs to pay the bills before they can get some initial funding.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#93

Post by baristaGeek » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

atroyn wrote: post #70

sama wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There are certain people that you cannot sit across from and let yourself not invest. He is one of them, for sure. He also had great growth. (Zuck comes to speak to the YC batch every year or so. PG used to say that when he talked to Zuck he'd find himself saying "whoa, we should really fund this guy". I had the same experience last time he came to YC.)

What's something he said or did to cause the 'whoa' reaction? Any kind of anecdote you can share?

Watch the Startup School video on Youtube. It's when he talks about what he built before/parallel to The Facebook (Wirehog, Synapse, ZuckNet, etc.)

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#94

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#95

Post by jisagigi » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

Sam,

Have not seen YC investing on any Television/native Smart TV apps ...any thoughts on why?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#96

Post by atroyn » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

As a proportion, how much of the value of YC is in the advice partners give, how much in the 'brand name' and network, and how much is just being around tons of smart focused people for 3 months?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#97

Post by throwaway150320 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

In terms of what to look for in founders, one lesson YC has learned seems to be that determination > intelligence.

What other major lessons have you learned in the last few years?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#98

Post by fakingxan » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

Any ideas for some innovative growth hacks?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#99

Post by edwinespinosa09 » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

Sam,

Does every application submitted, before the deadline, get seen and on average by how many reviewers?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#100

Post by mattkrisiloff » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #53

If you had applied now with Loopt, do you think you would have been accepted into YC? Or Alexis Ohanian / Steve Huffman with Reddit in its primordial phase? It seems like YC has become so competitive that it cuts out some of those promising (risky) founders that don't have as much to show.

On that note, would you ever consider starting a YC 'minor league' farm? It'd be interesting to do 12-15k investments on young, very scrappy founders, a la original Summer Founders Program. Perhaps mentored by alumni rather than full-time partners for bandwidth purposes.