Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
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Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
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Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#2They seemed to trade quality as well. Its now a net negative signal for a company's success if they are accepted into YC.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#3They seemed to trade quality as well. Its now a net negative signal for a company's success if they are accepted into YC.
You’ll have to expand on this for us plebs. To whom is it a net negative signal?
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#4Oof just watched a video from the Pear.ai guys and was happy to hear they made it into YC. I don't know much about the project, but they seem like good people.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#5They seemed to trade quality as well. Its now a net negative signal for a company's success if they are accepted into YC.
You’ll have to expand on this for us plebs. To whom is it a net negative signal?
I mean I can't speak for that commenter, but I hold any VC backed startup in suspicion for a good amount of time because if they can't reach the size demanded by their investors, which runs the gamut from ambitious-but-achievable all the way to not-in-my-or-your-lifetime, a perfectly profitable modestly sized business is almost bound to be shut down and it's services terminated with little drama, leaving behind potentially useless products, or yet another fucking ZIP file to add to the pile of the things I have yet to open up and sort into other mediums.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#6Just from public information my impression is that prestige was never a goal while scaling was in the plans from fairly early on.
Anecdotally, some of the best recent founders I know are opting not to apply, which I think is a bad sign. But their reasons have nothing to do with the scale, competitiveness, or prestige of the program.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#7Oof just watched a video from the Pear.ai guys and was happy to hear they made it into YC. I don't know much about the project, but they seem like good people.
"What we're doing isn't technically illegal so stop talking about it" isn't generally a phrase used by what I'd call good people, but we'll agree to disagree.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#8IMHO this post misses the fact that YC becoming a prestige institution is itself a sort of failure mode. You don't want to attract founders who figure YC is a low-risk alternative to grad school that will look good on their resume.
It's tough to avoid that outcome while still conferring positive signal to VCs/potential employees, though.
I'm sure YC/Garry see something in the PearAI founders' ability to market themselves, but I find the whole debacle a bit embarrassing for YC and I know some of my YC batchmates quietly do as well.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#9How many times did the author apply and get rejected from YC?
I have heard this sentiment before, from a less successful VC. After comparing them based on track record, it was clear YC is in a league of its own. I want to get advice from people who have built startups before. Looks at YC advisors on YouTube and you'll find they're all very successful.
Look at the partners and advisors at most VCs or accelerator programs, and you won't find that level of experience. You'll get mismanaged and start thinking like an investor instead.
Re: Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth
#10I don't know what YC thinks, but the mission is not about prestige, but to help startups succeed, so these startups can make something people want.
Also, YC is mostly back in person and so pretty hard to scale (also batch sizes have gone down in the last couple of years).