3 ms·
The median age of YC founders is 30. These aren't the pliable, simple-minded children of your caricature. Many of them are accomplished entrepreneurs who unders
by _sentient 11y ago
The median age of YC founders is 30. These aren't the pliable, simple-minded children of your caricature. Many of them are accomplished entrepreneurs who understand power law dynamics perfectly.
Further, I think nearly every founder who has gone through YC would report that, succeed or fail, they are net-benefited by the experience. Rather than stunting an individual, the exercise of founding a startup is probably one of the best ways to rapidly increase your skill-set over a short time frame.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI would agree with you that attempting a startup is a net positive career, and even life, experience. I would disagree that you should grind away for it on years. If YC is confident that hustle/effort is the problem, they should be hiring engineers directly, pay them market rate, and keep all of the equity in their projects to themselves instead of having founders shoulder the risk.
- SandersAK 11y agoI think a lot of your replies and central argument is very thoughtful, but the one thing to consider is that successful startups are the result of unreasonable exertions of will, unreasonable amounts of luck, and an unreasonable amount of risk. If it were reasonable, I don't think the value created would be so great. While I don't disagree with your points on a macro, startups are very specific entities, and their success is contingent upon founders (and team members) who are willing to do unreasonable things. And also be extremely lucky.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoThank you. I agree with your points as well.