10 ms·

The Toddler at Y Combinator

167 points by jkurnia 11y ago

Kluny 11y ago
One question - why was Kurnia the one who had to take Adam? Wouldn't it be a lot more sensible to leave him home with the dad?
- dcole2929 11y ago
  that was literally my first thought.
- seiji 11y ago
  Perhaps it was a cleverly calculated marketing move? After all, https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/632577089539997697 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/632577089539997697
- modfodder 11y ago
  Sounds like it was very tight financially, it might have made more financial sense for her to integrate childcare into her daily life at YC than for him to pay for daycare/babysitting while he's at work. Seems it worked out fine for the most part, but it's also possible that if she had to do it over again, different choices would have been made.
  - alistairSH 11y ago
    That was my assumption.
- tomsaffell 11y ago
  I can't speak for anyone else's circumstances, but I can't imagine ever opting for my two year old son to be away from his mother for three months. Happy to elaborate, if people are interested.
  - Kluny 11y ago
    Please. I have no kids, hope to someday, but it seems to me that being separated from either parent for three months sucks equally for the parent, but the kid probably won't notice that much. It's not like he's breastfeeding or anything. I'm interested to learn how I might be wrong though. *Yo, I asked a legitimate polite question in the interest of learning more, stating my preexisting assumptions and inviting people to educate me. The parent comment gave a very nice and informative reply which was helpful to me and likely others. I don't think that rates downvotes.
    - randlet 11y ago
      At two years old most children will have a stronger bond with the mother than the father because generally the bulk of care, including breastfeeding, has been administered by the mother up until this point in their life. There are likely genetic/chemical/evolutionary forces at play here too. Even at three years old, my daughter would unquestionably choose to spend three months with my wife rather than me (I'm not hurt or offended by this!). edit: "but the kid probably won't notice that much" The kid will definitely notice :) Being separated from a kid for three months would also be much harder emotionally on my wife than it would for me.
      - sarah2079 11y ago
        In my experience this is not true when the father is also doing a lot of the care, so I am skeptical of the importance of "genetic/chemical/evolutionary forces."
        randlet 11y ago
        Yes, that is somewhat speculative on my part although the "chemistry" part behind the bond created by breastfeeding is very well established.
      - Kluny 11y ago
        I was thinking that since kids mostly don't remember anything from before age 2-3, it wouldn't matter. But then again, it probably would matter to the parents, who wouldn't want to distress their kid regardless of whether he remembers.
- mathattack 11y ago
  The kids do much better when I'm the one on business trips than my wife. (I can manage, but they miss her more than they miss me.) Not sure how universal this is. I hear it changes when the kids get older. Also - the dad in the story is a martial arts instructor. Perhaps watching so much violence every day wouldn't be great for the kids. (And it's not a profession that pays very well, which may have precluded daycare)
  - coralreef 11y ago
    I chuckled a bit at your violence comment. One, because violence is not the main purpose of martial arts. Two, because the father teaches it, little Adam will undoubtedly be learning how to fight and defend himself when he's big enough.
    - evilduck 11y ago
      > One, because violence is not the main purpose of martial arts. You should probably try explaining that subtlety at least once to a kid under the age of 4 before you laugh at it. Most martial arts contain hitting and kicking components, or at least pretty physical throws and grapples. To a toddler, that's just fighting since it quacks like a duck. They're extremely literal at that age. Some toddlers might understand it, but I'd be cautious assuming all of them would grasp an abstract like that. Remember, this is the same age group that might think it's totally reasonable to use the family dog as a substitute for paper towels, or want to share their spaghetti-o's with the fish in the fish bowl. When he's big enough to understand and restrain his actions, more power to him and his family.
      - coralreef 11y ago
        I suppose that's a fair enough assumption, in theory. However having been around gyms with toddlers/young children around, everything is mostly ignored while the kids use the ring ropes as a personal jungle gym. I don't know what they think or absorb from it, but I'm guessing they just see it as some sort of goofy adult playtime because they acclimate and grow bored of it quickly. You're also forgetting that they also see us laughing, sweating, doing pushups and situps, and shaking hands at the end while we thank each other.
- Mz 11y ago
  The article indicates the father tried to make arrangements (presumably) to keep the child (edit: or perhaps accompany them) but was unable to do so successfully: Terra scrambled to find a substitute instructor at his martial-arts school, but came up short. All of which meant that if Kurnia was going to participate in YC, she’d have to separate Terra from his two-year-old son for three months—
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    To me, that sounds like he was trying to make arrangements to go with them. You don't need to have a substitute teacher to watch a child; there are daycare options, or he could bring the child to the school. Doesn't seem like a worse option than taking the child to live in a flophouse.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - tptacek 11y ago
      To me, people's basic parenting decisions sound like something we shouldn't be trying to debate on a message board.
      - s73v3r 11y ago
        It was the entire point of the story. So it is something that is up for discussion. I see almost no reason why the child didn't stay with his dad during that time.
        tptacek 11y ago
        Well, if "s73v3r" on Hacker News sees no reason, surely the matter is settled.
        s73v3r 11y ago
        So tell me, why could the child not stay with his father? Why was it better that he live in a flophouse?
- brudgers 11y ago
  For many families, that would be harder. For others, not. There's no right decision.
- goodcanadian 11y ago
  While breastfeeding, it is just about impossible for a child to be separated from Mommy. When no longer breastfeeding, I see no particular reason that the child could not go with Daddy just as easily as with Mommy. It depends on the family dynamics, I suppose. Many children are more closely bonded with their mothers, but that may be down to (out-dated, imho) cultural expectations that the mother be the primary caregiver. I have tried very hard to share the parenting equally with my wife, and my daughter seems to miss each of us equally when we are away. She has spent full days away from Mommy without trouble, but she has not yet done an overnight (breastfeeding). She has been without me for up to a week or so at a time though we usually Skype daily. I think, now, we would be willing to have my wife go away for a few days and have the daughter stay with me, but so far a situation requiring it hasn't come up. I travel more for work than my wife does.
merrua 11y ago
Huh they don't have digs for their batches. I would have thought they would.
- Kluny 11y ago
  That'd be an obvious next step for them, for sure.
  - dang 11y ago
    I'd be shocked if YC ever did that. The presumption has always been that founders are adults who make their own decisions. YC partners aren't founders' bosses or life organizers. They just offer advice about startups.
    - Kluny 11y ago
      I wasn't thinking like a kid-style dorm. When I was younger, I worked at a gas station for the summer in a tourist town (Tofino, BC). Gas station attendants aren't usually given free housing, but in this case the company did provide housing because they found it impossible to staff the place otherwise. The town got stuffed so full of tourists that there were no accommodations for the temporary summer staff. So hotel, restaurant, and even retail employers would have some kind of cheap and very rough housing deal for temp staff. Mattresses on the floor kind of thing, and only on an as-needed basis. Because of the unique housing tension in SF, I'd guess that some employers do that there as well.
wxs 11y ago
I remember Adam from our batch! Cool kid: precocious, though he did come this close to spilling things on my computer a couple times :)
oxryly1 11y ago
Seems like a good outcome in the end... but the landlord asking her to clean bathrooms to stay there? What the hell?
- danielvf 11y ago
  I'm guessing this was cleaning the toddler affected bathroom(s). Have you seen what young child of the correct age will do to a bathroom in a single session? It's amazing! There's always number one, and possibly number two spread around. I still don't know how so much mess can be made without intentional effort. Source: I work from home, with children, clean bathrooms.
  - modfodder 11y ago
    possibly, but most parents I know would clean up after their toddlers immediately in a bathroom that isn't in their own home. Maybe if the child is old enough to go by himself, but that didn't seem to be the case here. On the other hand, I've dealt with landlords who wouldn't even hesitate to use (abuse?) the power to throw someone out to get negotiate something like that. purely anecdotal.
  - Mz 11y ago
    I will suggest that what is true of your children in your home is not universal truth. My kids were holy terrors on multiple fronts who could not be trusted for 30 seconds. Pissing all over the bathroom and smearing poop around was not one of the things they did. The request for one of the few women in the house to clean the bathrooms in order to stay reads as straight up sexism to me.
  - oxryly1 11y ago
    Ah, but does your landlord ask you to clean the bathrooms as a condition of staying there?
  - melindajb 11y ago
    the article clearly states that asking her to clean the bathrooms was a penalty for her child speaking to the other men in the house while they were working: "Sometimes, when Kurnia became absorbed in her work, the naturally curious Adam might wander over to another resident to ask what he (the residents were mostly male) was doing on his computer. Some found this cute; most didn't. Finally, someone complained to the landlord, who threatened to throw Kurnia and Adam out unless she agreed to clean the bathrooms. Scrubbing toilets for 15 people seemed too time-consuming, so Kurnia negotiated: she would pay a higher rent, take out the trash, and keep closer watch over Adam. The landlord granted a reprieve." setting aside the landlord's troubling, possibly illegal response; the lack of compassion of the male developers in said flophouse says volumes about the issues facing us in Silicon valley.
baseballmerpeak 11y ago
Whatever it takes for success. And pg is a genuinely nice fellow.
- dang 11y ago
  That vignette is classic pg. It makes me happy to see so well-chosen and vivid a detail in a report like this.
  - tomsaffell 11y ago
    me too. i can just see it!
mrmch 11y ago
Startups are challenging, but that's definitely an added challenge Julia. I wish I had known about the housing challenges during yc, maybe we could have helped somehow :( Not to distract from this story, I've been impressed with my experience donating on Zidisha -- repayment has been incredibly quick, and it's rewarding to reinvest funds.
Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
HOW DARE YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO SPEAK OF GENDERS!!!! GET THE PITCH FORKS!!!!!!
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
    Oh geez, fine, tried just once to be a bit playful. Back to regular business, folks. Nothing to see here.
efriese 11y ago
This is an amazing story. Reminds me of my mother. I need to call her...
Max_Horstmann 11y ago
Awesome!
gyardley 11y ago
Perhaps I'm naive, but I would've expected the folks at Y Combinator to go a little above and beyond so a parent with a young child wouldn't have to stay in a 'flophouse'.
- jkurnia 11y ago
  I think most folks at YC weren't aware I was coming alone with Adam until well into the batch. They did go above and beyond to put me in touch with a housing advisor while I was in the area for interviews. The problem was that I was only staying for three months, too short a period to rent an apartment cheaply, and there didn't happen to be any women founders' shared houses in my batch. In case it didn't come through clearly enough in the article, I should reiterate that the YC partners and my batchmates were super supportive and often went out of their way to make it easier for me to participate in YC events - offering rides, allowing Adam to tag along with me at office hours, helping to entertain him, and generally being extraordinarily patient and welcoming.
  - gyardley 11y ago
    You don't need me to tell you you're a tremendous bad-ass, and I'm sure everyone was helpful and meant well, but if Y Combinator is truly trying to be inclusive they should've been more proactive here. I'm sort of shocked that at the most prestigious and successful incubator in the country, no one even seems to have even asked the admitted founders about any additional responsibilities they might have like child or elder care.
    - oxryly1 11y ago
      Agreed. That's one reason (among others) I'd never consider applying to YC. It appears to be tuned to individuals without any encumbrances -- i.e. the young, unattached, and fairly well-to-do.
Blahah 11y ago
Impressive that Julia hustled so hard just to be there at YC, but disappointing that she had to. Why doesn't YC provide some basic support for its founders to attend the program? At a minimum, room, board and transport for founders and their families for the duration. Not doing so will strongly select for people who already have the means to support themselves in Silicon Valley for 3 months, which is like saying "rich kids only".
- davidw 11y ago
  Well, the article does have (italics mine): > she and Adam would have to get by in the Bay Area on the meager monthly stipend she allowed herself. YC does give people a decent chunk of money; at least startups. Maybe it's different for non profits? From the article, it seems she chose to live frugally and spend it on her project.
- seiji 11y ago
  YC isn't a summer camp. It's not an incubator. You are not an incubee. They give you money and you can spend it however you want. It's generally assumed the cost to start at startup these days is only food+housing for two or three people.
- dang 11y ago
  Of course YC provides "support for its founders to attend the program". It funds them to do so. Nonprofits get the same funding. I don't know about this case, but the article mentions "the meager monthly stipend she allowed herself", which suggests that Julia chose to spend as much of the funding as possible on the nonprofit itself, despite considerable inconvenience. If that's so, I admire her for it, and it's a strong signal of authenticity for Zidisha.
  - Blahah 11y ago
    I also admire Julia for the commitment she showed. She made it work, and by the sound of it, it was damn hard. Don't get me wrong, YC clearly provides great support in general for its founders. What I'm suggesting is that I would expect them to go that bit further to be inclusive - especially with their public commitment to encouraging female founders. My impression is that the funding founders get is interpreted as funding for the company, rather than for the founder to live. Is that wrong?
rdl 11y ago
Nice timing of this article.
warfangle 11y ago
> the landlord [...] threatened to throw Kurnia and Adam out unless she agreed to clean the bathrooms Pardon my french, but how the fuck is that legal? That's seriously messed up at a fundamental level.
- archimedespi 11y ago
  I have literally no idea. I didn't think that a landlord could throw you out if you don't do a task for them.
- danielvf 11y ago
  I'm guessing this was cleaning the toddler affected bathroom(s).
s73v3r 11y ago
I honestly do not see why the child had to go with. What was wrong with the husband taking care of him?
Jun8 11y ago
"I did the right thing, she thought. But I’ll never do it again." Somebody should change that for incubators and YC, being the most forward thinking and advanced one, should be the first to try: IDEABOLT: Apply to next HN with non-profit startup to care for kids (preschool 2-5) of HN batchmates onsite at YC (with its blessing, taking over a large room or some converted space nearby). Not only this would increase the pool of applicants greatly (really?) it boosts the coolness of HN close to \infty. The service will be free (9-5) so how to make money? Investigate innovative preschool learning methods using the kids (of course, with parents permission). This target group is perhaps the least served child demographic (no good solutions for something as mundane as poop/feed tracking, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191), except mundane stuff like diapers and bottles). "He even struck up a bond with Paul Graham. Most people either talk down to two-year-olds or ignore them. But Graham took the time to figure out that Adam was fascinated with trains, says Kurnia, and the two of them spent 10 minutes drawing trains on a white board. Graham treated Adam like a little founder, interested in his interests." I would have expected this! OK, Add to the idea to mine kids for ideas, Big fashion.
- modfodder 11y ago
  I was thinking something similar. Seems the daycare industry might be ripe for "disruption" (or preferably, innovation).
- Mz 11y ago
  If you are serious, you could research how on-site daycare was handled during WWII to entice women into the work force and help them succeed. It has been done before, and very successfully, but only long enough to win WWII and then send women back home in droves to be full time moms -- which they mostly were happy to do, in part because prior to WWII everyone was suffering through The Great Depression and savings rates for a great many de facto 2 income, no kids families during the war was as high as 50%. People were happy to buy a house in the 'burbs and live the good life after suffering through the depression and then the war back to back. But lots of interesting things happened during WWII. As part of your research, you might start by watching historically based movies, such as A League of Their Own.
Jun8 11y ago
"Moving quickly, she found she could cut the round-trip hike to about an hour. The only problem was when it rained, which happened several times. In those cases, she’d pass an umbrella up to Adam. He’d stay mostly dry, but Kurnia would be fairly wet by the time they arrived." Wait, so none of her batchmates noticed this and offered her a ride for subsequent trips?
- jkurnia 11y ago
  Most of the time when I took Adam to YC, it was not for batch events but rather for one-on-one office hours. When batchmates were present, they would give us a ride, as did the YC partners when they didn't have other responsibilities.
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    My hat is off to you. I joke that I have a 7 month old son and a 14 month old startup but then I also split duties with my wife, so it's a tiny fraction of what you've dealt with. "The website is crashing!" as an early phrase would be awesome and horrifying all at once. :)
njloof 11y ago
Solving these sorts of problems better would do wonders for the persistent gender gap in high tech.
cbd1984 11y ago
Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?
- tptacek 11y ago
  How on Earth could that possibly be any of your business?
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    Why are you being rude?
    - tptacek 11y ago
      What a dazzlingly dishonest comment. Your original comment read: "Why wasn't the child left with the father?" You rewrote it after I wrote my response, to which you originally replied "Flagged for rudeness".
      - cbd1984 11y ago
        Do you have me confused with someone else??
        tptacek 11y ago
        The current comment at the root of this thread doesn't even make sense. "The company" was Julia Kurnia. The child care part of the story is about her efforts to handle child care while going through YC.
        cbd1984 11y ago
        > "The company" was Julia Kurnia. No, the company was YC. I fixed my comment to improve clarity.
        deleted 11y ago
cbd1984 11y ago
Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?
- dang 11y ago
  You've been abusive in this thread in several ways, including by posting this three times. Please stop. YC is an investor. It provides funding, not "solutions". Founders can spend the funding on childcare if they deem that best for their startup. Probably some do. It's entirely their call.
xenadu02 11y ago
I was my son's primary caregiver for several months while my wife recovered from surgery (for 1 month she was unable to provide any care, even 'babysitting'). He was around 9-12 months. It was far more exhausting than anything else I've ever done. I went to the grocery store while he slept, laundry in the mornings. I wrote code at night or nap time, or sometimes during the day when he was content to play with toys. You very quickly learn to drop the stuff that doesn't matter; I'm a more productive developer today because of it. I was forced to develop a critical eye and abandon designs that didn't work immediately. I also lost my taste for TV shows, movies, and most podcasts; now I'd rather build something than consume content. Good for Julia; I have a lot of sympathy. Frankly I have a lot of sympathy for single parents as well... I used to have harsh uninformed opinions on the subject (that I see often repeated around HN and tech in general, especially by privileged young guys like myself). Then I had to live it for reasons entirely outside my control.
cbd1984 11y ago
Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?
bootload 11y ago
"The first time Kurnia showed up with Adam, it may have raised a few eyebrows. While other founders with children have occasionally managed YC by having their spouse join them in an apartment in the area, no one had ever attempted to care for a toddler, alone, through the program." Whenever you hear male founders/tech workers bitch & complain about women and tech and the level playing field, remember this example.
jkurnia 11y ago
A lot of this discussion has centered on YC's support for parents / female founders. Since that wasn't the focus of the Fast Company article, I've shared my experience and thoughts on that subject more extensively here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-founder-at-y-com_b_8010110.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-founder-...

167 points by jkurnia 11y ago

Kluny 11y ago

One question - why was Kurnia the one who had to take Adam? Wouldn't it be a lot more sensible to leave him home with the dad?

dcole2929 11y ago
that was literally my first thought.
seiji 11y ago
Perhaps it was a cleverly calculated marketing move? After all, https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/632577089539997697 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/632577089539997697
modfodder 11y ago
Sounds like it was very tight financially, it might have made more financial sense for her to integrate childcare into her daily life at YC than for him to pay for daycare/babysitting while he's at work. Seems it worked out fine for the most part, but it's also possible that if she had to do it over again, different choices would have been made.
- alistairSH 11y ago
  That was my assumption.
tomsaffell 11y ago
I can't speak for anyone else's circumstances, but I can't imagine ever opting for my two year old son to be away from his mother for three months. Happy to elaborate, if people are interested.
- Kluny 11y ago
  Please. I have no kids, hope to someday, but it seems to me that being separated from either parent for three months sucks equally for the parent, but the kid probably won't notice that much. It's not like he's breastfeeding or anything. I'm interested to learn how I might be wrong though. *Yo, I asked a legitimate polite question in the interest of learning more, stating my preexisting assumptions and inviting people to educate me. The parent comment gave a very nice and informative reply which was helpful to me and likely others. I don't think that rates downvotes.
  - randlet 11y ago
    At two years old most children will have a stronger bond with the mother than the father because generally the bulk of care, including breastfeeding, has been administered by the mother up until this point in their life. There are likely genetic/chemical/evolutionary forces at play here too. Even at three years old, my daughter would unquestionably choose to spend three months with my wife rather than me (I'm not hurt or offended by this!). edit: "but the kid probably won't notice that much" The kid will definitely notice :) Being separated from a kid for three months would also be much harder emotionally on my wife than it would for me.
    - sarah2079 11y ago
      In my experience this is not true when the father is also doing a lot of the care, so I am skeptical of the importance of "genetic/chemical/evolutionary forces."
      - randlet 11y ago
        Yes, that is somewhat speculative on my part although the "chemistry" part behind the bond created by breastfeeding is very well established.
    - Kluny 11y ago
      I was thinking that since kids mostly don't remember anything from before age 2-3, it wouldn't matter. But then again, it probably would matter to the parents, who wouldn't want to distress their kid regardless of whether he remembers.
mathattack 11y ago
The kids do much better when I'm the one on business trips than my wife. (I can manage, but they miss her more than they miss me.) Not sure how universal this is. I hear it changes when the kids get older. Also - the dad in the story is a martial arts instructor. Perhaps watching so much violence every day wouldn't be great for the kids. (And it's not a profession that pays very well, which may have precluded daycare)
- coralreef 11y ago
  I chuckled a bit at your violence comment. One, because violence is not the main purpose of martial arts. Two, because the father teaches it, little Adam will undoubtedly be learning how to fight and defend himself when he's big enough.
  - evilduck 11y ago
    > One, because violence is not the main purpose of martial arts. You should probably try explaining that subtlety at least once to a kid under the age of 4 before you laugh at it. Most martial arts contain hitting and kicking components, or at least pretty physical throws and grapples. To a toddler, that's just fighting since it quacks like a duck. They're extremely literal at that age. Some toddlers might understand it, but I'd be cautious assuming all of them would grasp an abstract like that. Remember, this is the same age group that might think it's totally reasonable to use the family dog as a substitute for paper towels, or want to share their spaghetti-o's with the fish in the fish bowl. When he's big enough to understand and restrain his actions, more power to him and his family.
    - coralreef 11y ago
      I suppose that's a fair enough assumption, in theory. However having been around gyms with toddlers/young children around, everything is mostly ignored while the kids use the ring ropes as a personal jungle gym. I don't know what they think or absorb from it, but I'm guessing they just see it as some sort of goofy adult playtime because they acclimate and grow bored of it quickly. You're also forgetting that they also see us laughing, sweating, doing pushups and situps, and shaking hands at the end while we thank each other.
Mz 11y ago
The article indicates the father tried to make arrangements (presumably) to keep the child (edit: or perhaps accompany them) but was unable to do so successfully: Terra scrambled to find a substitute instructor at his martial-arts school, but came up short. All of which meant that if Kurnia was going to participate in YC, she’d have to separate Terra from his two-year-old son for three months—
- s73v3r 11y ago
  To me, that sounds like he was trying to make arrangements to go with them. You don't need to have a substitute teacher to watch a child; there are daycare options, or he could bring the child to the school. Doesn't seem like a worse option than taking the child to live in a flophouse.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - tptacek 11y ago
    To me, people's basic parenting decisions sound like something we shouldn't be trying to debate on a message board.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      It was the entire point of the story. So it is something that is up for discussion. I see almost no reason why the child didn't stay with his dad during that time.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        Well, if "s73v3r" on Hacker News sees no reason, surely the matter is settled.
        s73v3r 11y ago
        So tell me, why could the child not stay with his father? Why was it better that he live in a flophouse?
brudgers 11y ago
For many families, that would be harder. For others, not. There's no right decision.
goodcanadian 11y ago
While breastfeeding, it is just about impossible for a child to be separated from Mommy. When no longer breastfeeding, I see no particular reason that the child could not go with Daddy just as easily as with Mommy. It depends on the family dynamics, I suppose. Many children are more closely bonded with their mothers, but that may be down to (out-dated, imho) cultural expectations that the mother be the primary caregiver. I have tried very hard to share the parenting equally with my wife, and my daughter seems to miss each of us equally when we are away. She has spent full days away from Mommy without trouble, but she has not yet done an overnight (breastfeeding). She has been without me for up to a week or so at a time though we usually Skype daily. I think, now, we would be willing to have my wife go away for a few days and have the daughter stay with me, but so far a situation requiring it hasn't come up. I travel more for work than my wife does.

merrua 11y ago

Huh they don't have digs for their batches. I would have thought they would.

Kluny 11y ago
That'd be an obvious next step for them, for sure.
- dang 11y ago
  I'd be shocked if YC ever did that. The presumption has always been that founders are adults who make their own decisions. YC partners aren't founders' bosses or life organizers. They just offer advice about startups.
  - Kluny 11y ago
    I wasn't thinking like a kid-style dorm. When I was younger, I worked at a gas station for the summer in a tourist town (Tofino, BC). Gas station attendants aren't usually given free housing, but in this case the company did provide housing because they found it impossible to staff the place otherwise. The town got stuffed so full of tourists that there were no accommodations for the temporary summer staff. So hotel, restaurant, and even retail employers would have some kind of cheap and very rough housing deal for temp staff. Mattresses on the floor kind of thing, and only on an as-needed basis. Because of the unique housing tension in SF, I'd guess that some employers do that there as well.

wxs 11y ago

I remember Adam from our batch! Cool kid: precocious, though he did come this close to spilling things on my computer a couple times :)

oxryly1 11y ago

Seems like a good outcome in the end... but the landlord asking her to clean bathrooms to stay there? What the hell?

danielvf 11y ago
I'm guessing this was cleaning the toddler affected bathroom(s). Have you seen what young child of the correct age will do to a bathroom in a single session? It's amazing! There's always number one, and possibly number two spread around. I still don't know how so much mess can be made without intentional effort. Source: I work from home, with children, clean bathrooms.
- modfodder 11y ago
  possibly, but most parents I know would clean up after their toddlers immediately in a bathroom that isn't in their own home. Maybe if the child is old enough to go by himself, but that didn't seem to be the case here. On the other hand, I've dealt with landlords who wouldn't even hesitate to use (abuse?) the power to throw someone out to get negotiate something like that. purely anecdotal.
- Mz 11y ago
  I will suggest that what is true of your children in your home is not universal truth. My kids were holy terrors on multiple fronts who could not be trusted for 30 seconds. Pissing all over the bathroom and smearing poop around was not one of the things they did. The request for one of the few women in the house to clean the bathrooms in order to stay reads as straight up sexism to me.
- oxryly1 11y ago
  Ah, but does your landlord ask you to clean the bathrooms as a condition of staying there?
- melindajb 11y ago
  the article clearly states that asking her to clean the bathrooms was a penalty for her child speaking to the other men in the house while they were working: "Sometimes, when Kurnia became absorbed in her work, the naturally curious Adam might wander over to another resident to ask what he (the residents were mostly male) was doing on his computer. Some found this cute; most didn't. Finally, someone complained to the landlord, who threatened to throw Kurnia and Adam out unless she agreed to clean the bathrooms. Scrubbing toilets for 15 people seemed too time-consuming, so Kurnia negotiated: she would pay a higher rent, take out the trash, and keep closer watch over Adam. The landlord granted a reprieve." setting aside the landlord's troubling, possibly illegal response; the lack of compassion of the male developers in said flophouse says volumes about the issues facing us in Silicon valley.

baseballmerpeak 11y ago

Whatever it takes for success. And pg is a genuinely nice fellow.

dang 11y ago
That vignette is classic pg. It makes me happy to see so well-chosen and vivid a detail in a report like this.
- tomsaffell 11y ago
  me too. i can just see it!

mrmch 11y ago

Startups are challenging, but that's definitely an added challenge Julia. I wish I had known about the housing challenges during yc, maybe we could have helped somehow :( Not to distract from this story, I've been impressed with my experience donating on Zidisha -- repayment has been incredibly quick, and it's rewarding to reinvest funds.

Disruptive_Dave 11y ago

HOW DARE YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO SPEAK OF GENDERS!!!! GET THE PITCH FORKS!!!!!!

dang 11y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
  Oh geez, fine, tried just once to be a bit playful. Back to regular business, folks. Nothing to see here.

efriese 11y ago

This is an amazing story. Reminds me of my mother. I need to call her...

Max_Horstmann 11y ago

Awesome!

gyardley 11y ago

Perhaps I'm naive, but I would've expected the folks at Y Combinator to go a little above and beyond so a parent with a young child wouldn't have to stay in a 'flophouse'.

jkurnia 11y ago
I think most folks at YC weren't aware I was coming alone with Adam until well into the batch. They did go above and beyond to put me in touch with a housing advisor while I was in the area for interviews. The problem was that I was only staying for three months, too short a period to rent an apartment cheaply, and there didn't happen to be any women founders' shared houses in my batch. In case it didn't come through clearly enough in the article, I should reiterate that the YC partners and my batchmates were super supportive and often went out of their way to make it easier for me to participate in YC events - offering rides, allowing Adam to tag along with me at office hours, helping to entertain him, and generally being extraordinarily patient and welcoming.
- gyardley 11y ago
  You don't need me to tell you you're a tremendous bad-ass, and I'm sure everyone was helpful and meant well, but if Y Combinator is truly trying to be inclusive they should've been more proactive here. I'm sort of shocked that at the most prestigious and successful incubator in the country, no one even seems to have even asked the admitted founders about any additional responsibilities they might have like child or elder care.
  - oxryly1 11y ago
    Agreed. That's one reason (among others) I'd never consider applying to YC. It appears to be tuned to individuals without any encumbrances -- i.e. the young, unattached, and fairly well-to-do.

Blahah 11y ago

Impressive that Julia hustled so hard just to be there at YC, but disappointing that she had to. Why doesn't YC provide some basic support for its founders to attend the program? At a minimum, room, board and transport for founders and their families for the duration. Not doing so will strongly select for people who already have the means to support themselves in Silicon Valley for 3 months, which is like saying "rich kids only".

davidw 11y ago
Well, the article does have (italics mine): > she and Adam would have to get by in the Bay Area on the meager monthly stipend she allowed herself. YC does give people a decent chunk of money; at least startups. Maybe it's different for non profits? From the article, it seems she chose to live frugally and spend it on her project.
seiji 11y ago
YC isn't a summer camp. It's not an incubator. You are not an incubee. They give you money and you can spend it however you want. It's generally assumed the cost to start at startup these days is only food+housing for two or three people.
dang 11y ago
Of course YC provides "support for its founders to attend the program". It funds them to do so. Nonprofits get the same funding. I don't know about this case, but the article mentions "the meager monthly stipend she allowed herself", which suggests that Julia chose to spend as much of the funding as possible on the nonprofit itself, despite considerable inconvenience. If that's so, I admire her for it, and it's a strong signal of authenticity for Zidisha.
- Blahah 11y ago
  I also admire Julia for the commitment she showed. She made it work, and by the sound of it, it was damn hard. Don't get me wrong, YC clearly provides great support in general for its founders. What I'm suggesting is that I would expect them to go that bit further to be inclusive - especially with their public commitment to encouraging female founders. My impression is that the funding founders get is interpreted as funding for the company, rather than for the founder to live. Is that wrong?

rdl 11y ago

Nice timing of this article.

warfangle 11y ago

> the landlord [...] threatened to throw Kurnia and Adam out unless she agreed to clean the bathrooms Pardon my french, but how the fuck is that legal? That's seriously messed up at a fundamental level.

archimedespi 11y ago
I have literally no idea. I didn't think that a landlord could throw you out if you don't do a task for them.
danielvf 11y ago
I'm guessing this was cleaning the toddler affected bathroom(s).

s73v3r 11y ago

I honestly do not see why the child had to go with. What was wrong with the husband taking care of him?

Jun8 11y ago

"I did the right thing, she thought. But I’ll never do it again." Somebody should change that for incubators and YC, being the most forward thinking and advanced one, should be the first to try: IDEABOLT: Apply to next HN with non-profit startup to care for kids (preschool 2-5) of HN batchmates onsite at YC (with its blessing, taking over a large room or some converted space nearby). Not only this would increase the pool of applicants greatly (really?) it boosts the coolness of HN close to \infty. The service will be free (9-5) so how to make money? Investigate innovative preschool learning methods using the kids (of course, with parents permission). This target group is perhaps the least served child demographic (no good solutions for something as mundane as poop/feed tracking, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10075191), except mundane stuff like diapers and bottles). "He even struck up a bond with Paul Graham. Most people either talk down to two-year-olds or ignore them. But Graham took the time to figure out that Adam was fascinated with trains, says Kurnia, and the two of them spent 10 minutes drawing trains on a white board. Graham treated Adam like a little founder, interested in his interests." I would have expected this! OK, Add to the idea to mine kids for ideas, Big fashion.

modfodder 11y ago
I was thinking something similar. Seems the daycare industry might be ripe for "disruption" (or preferably, innovation).
Mz 11y ago
If you are serious, you could research how on-site daycare was handled during WWII to entice women into the work force and help them succeed. It has been done before, and very successfully, but only long enough to win WWII and then send women back home in droves to be full time moms -- which they mostly were happy to do, in part because prior to WWII everyone was suffering through The Great Depression and savings rates for a great many de facto 2 income, no kids families during the war was as high as 50%. People were happy to buy a house in the 'burbs and live the good life after suffering through the depression and then the war back to back. But lots of interesting things happened during WWII. As part of your research, you might start by watching historically based movies, such as A League of Their Own.

Jun8 11y ago

"Moving quickly, she found she could cut the round-trip hike to about an hour. The only problem was when it rained, which happened several times. In those cases, she’d pass an umbrella up to Adam. He’d stay mostly dry, but Kurnia would be fairly wet by the time they arrived." Wait, so none of her batchmates noticed this and offered her a ride for subsequent trips?

jkurnia 11y ago
Most of the time when I took Adam to YC, it was not for batch events but rather for one-on-one office hours. When batchmates were present, they would give us a ride, as did the YC partners when they didn't have other responsibilities.
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  My hat is off to you. I joke that I have a 7 month old son and a 14 month old startup but then I also split duties with my wife, so it's a tiny fraction of what you've dealt with. "The website is crashing!" as an early phrase would be awesome and horrifying all at once. :)

njloof 11y ago

Solving these sorts of problems better would do wonders for the persistent gender gap in high tech.

cbd1984 11y ago

Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?

tptacek 11y ago
How on Earth could that possibly be any of your business?
- cbd1984 11y ago
  Why are you being rude?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    What a dazzlingly dishonest comment. Your original comment read: "Why wasn't the child left with the father?" You rewrote it after I wrote my response, to which you originally replied "Flagged for rudeness".
    - cbd1984 11y ago
      Do you have me confused with someone else??
      - tptacek 11y ago
        The current comment at the root of this thread doesn't even make sense. "The company" was Julia Kurnia. The child care part of the story is about her efforts to handle child care while going through YC.
        cbd1984 11y ago
        > "The company" was Julia Kurnia. No, the company was YC. I fixed my comment to improve clarity.
        deleted 11y ago

cbd1984 11y ago

Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?

dang 11y ago
You've been abusive in this thread in several ways, including by posting this three times. Please stop. YC is an investor. It provides funding, not "solutions". Founders can spend the funding on childcare if they deem that best for their startup. Probably some do. It's entirely their call.

xenadu02 11y ago

I was my son's primary caregiver for several months while my wife recovered from surgery (for 1 month she was unable to provide any care, even 'babysitting'). He was around 9-12 months. It was far more exhausting than anything else I've ever done. I went to the grocery store while he slept, laundry in the mornings. I wrote code at night or nap time, or sometimes during the day when he was content to play with toys. You very quickly learn to drop the stuff that doesn't matter; I'm a more productive developer today because of it. I was forced to develop a critical eye and abandon designs that didn't work immediately. I also lost my taste for TV shows, movies, and most podcasts; now I'd rather build something than consume content. Good for Julia; I have a lot of sympathy. Frankly I have a lot of sympathy for single parents as well... I used to have harsh uninformed opinions on the subject (that I see often repeated around HN and tech in general, especially by privileged young guys like myself). Then I had to live it for reasons entirely outside my control.

cbd1984 11y ago

Why didn't YC offer a good childcare solution from day one?

bootload 11y ago

"The first time Kurnia showed up with Adam, it may have raised a few eyebrows. While other founders with children have occasionally managed YC by having their spouse join them in an apartment in the area, no one had ever attempted to care for a toddler, alone, through the program." Whenever you hear male founders/tech workers bitch & complain about women and tech and the level playing field, remember this example.

jkurnia 11y ago

A lot of this discussion has centered on YC's support for parents / female founders. Since that wasn't the focus of the Fast Company article, I've shared my experience and thoughts on that subject more extensively here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-founder-at-y-com_b_8010110.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-kurnia/a-female-founder-...