12 ms·
I am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator – AMA
The application deadline for our winter 2016 batch is next Tuesday, and people frequently have a lot of questions about applying. Also happy to talk about anything else!
EDIT 11:15 AM PDT: I have to go. This was fun!
- bt3 11y agoHi Sam, thanks for doing this. Is there any advice you can give to young founders trying to get into YC or raise a seed round? It’s worth noting we’re students with graduation quickly approaching. I fear my previous applications weren’t seriously considered since my team and I lack true industry experience, which leaves us seemingly unqualified.
- wlamont 11y agoRecently a plethora of startups working on new nuclear energy technology have been created: Transatomic power, Flibe, Helion and UPower (to name a few). These startups, respectively, have technology based on molten salt reactors (MSR), new fuels (Thorium), or new modalities (small distributed scale and fusion). Most of these startups face a huge challenge (and capital requirement) to go from idea/concept to pilot/demonstration plant. As Chairman of Helion and UPower how do you see these new startups commercializing their technology? Will they require partnerships with existing utilities and what is the expected timeline?
- sama 11y agoI think they should just try to raise large amounts of money rather than partner with large companies for development. However, they will need to partner with utilities for pilot plants. I can't speak to the other companies, but my hope is that UPower and Helion have prototypes in ~3-5 years.
- djhn 11y agoNuclear energy faces a challenging PR environment. Letting the public perception get so bad should be considered one of the costliest PR mistakes in recent history in terms of human and environmental cost. The problem is highlighted by the fact that many will disagree with this statement. How do you see the way out of this?
- solotronics 11y agoI sincerely hope these endeavors are successful!
- DanGPhoton 11y agoHi @sama. Are there any technologies that you would not consider funding?
- sama 11y agoWe will not invest in something that we think will be bad for the world even if we think it will make lots of money.
- bryang 11y agoLike lightsabers?
- ChicagoBoy11 11y agoHe said "bad for the world", not "the most amazing thing the world has ever seen." :-)
- vasilipupkin 11y agoAmen to that.
- mukulsud 11y agoHey Sam, would it be okay to use third party links to prove our market exists? - would the software that you use to scan through apps create a hyperlink and allow the partner reading the app to click thru?
- mukulsud 11y agoA follow up to this would be that if we use market numbers should we use attribution links to show where we got them from?
- erosa01 11y agoHi @sama. Since anyone could have applied to YC Fellowship, do you think that it finally became just a small "seed round" for the startups that would win YC Winter 2016.
- berpasan 11y agoHi @sama, I'm From Brazil and CEO of an EdTech startup. We're profitable, with 60 employees and a lot consumer traction/revenue, but didn't raise a Series A yet. Questions: 1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets? 2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all) would you consider them "too big for YC"? 3) If you select a post Seed startup, would YC invest at their latest valuation, or would it only offer the standard deal, even if it would be a "down round" for current investors? Heard you are visiting India and know you've been to Mexico not long ago. Ever thought about coming to Brazil? Best regards, Bernardo
- sama 11y ago1) No specific advice--we fund lots of companies whose products target far-away markets and are particularly interested in doing so. The only different question we might ask you is "How will you handle being away from your users for 3 months?" 2) We have funded companies that have raised more than $10 million, and they've said they still got a lot of value out of YC. If anything, it's usually the existing investors that have a problem with it. 3) Standard deal, BUT we buy common stock, so it doesn't trigger any anti-dilution stuff. Most investors understand that YC is mostly "sweat equity" anyway. I might come to Brazil for New Years!
- berpasan 11y agoWow, that would be great! Please, let us know if we can help in any way during your visit. Lots of interesting things for you to see in the Brazilian startup ecosystem. We are close to São Paulo (where Embraer, the 3rd largest airplane manufacturer in the world is located). Regards
- cfontes 11y agoThat is my home town! What do you guys do? I currently live in Campinas but would love to know Startups in SJC!
- rslater 11y agoI was wondering about the new open ip effort for the r&d lab. I work in the air force research lab and am working to do the same for us and other gov agencies. How do you plan to release/license ip... Marketing strategies, etc
- haaen 11y agoWill YCR accept donations from outsiders?
- pavornyoh 11y ago@Sama, So my question is about YC Research. You said in that earlier thread you will be hand picking the people. How exactly do you intend to do that if you don't me asking? Are you partnering with schools? Are they going to be recommended? Do you already have a database?
- tristanho 11y agoNot a complete answer at all, but it looks like the former CTO of stripe, Greg Brockman, is going to be involved[1]. I assume to start they're gonna look at people close to the YC network? [1]https://twitter.com/gdb/status/651825359340507136 https://twitter.com/gdb/status/651825359340507136
- pavornyoh 11y ago@Tristanho, thanks for the answer and the link.
- sama 11y agoMostly the algorithm was to ask very smart people "who are the top 3 smartest people you know in area X" and then go after the people whose names kept coming up.
- pavornyoh 11y ago@Sama,thanks for the answer.
- cryoshon 11y agoThis approach won't work if you are looking for academic diamonds in the rough. The names that will get mentioned are probably already scoring big grants and pumping out well-received publications. If you are really actually looking for long-shots by talented people, you're going to have to access the people nobody is going to mention for fear of marking themselves as a radical or an urchin-lover. Science is packed with these humble types, but they are invisible because of how brightly the superstars (who frequently stand on the shoulders of the more humble) shine. As an aside, smartness is certainly helpful for research endeavours, but pridelessness is actually what separates the people jousting against windmills and people traveling the hero's journey. The smartest are frequently targeting windmills thinking that they'll be the ones to finally succeed, whereas the prideless are more interested in understanding and exploiting molehills or anthills. Pridelessness allows for maximum flexibility in following reality, preventing ego-driven attachments to incorrect interpretations.
- andreasklinger 11y agoIn your opinion: If global human society would be a startup. What could/would be our 10x growth lever in innovation/living quality. (reason i ask - in the end YC is one of those companies shaping global innovation that could help move towards above)
- bnchrch 11y agoHey Sam, given your position I imagine you see numerous unique, novel ideas and the trends that drive them. Having said that is there any particular trend that you're seeing today that has you particularly intrigued or excited?
- sama 11y agoThe relentless progress of domain-specific machine learning over the past year.
- gotothrowaway 11y agoIs YC positioning itself to become a competitive alternative to traditional universities with YCR?
- billconan 11y agoWill we have another startup school this year? I haven't seen any information.
- sama 11y agoNot this year, but we will next year!
- rrhoover 11y agoHey, Sam! You recently announced HN is being split off from YC. What changes will we see to the site/community in the next 6 months?
- sama 11y agoWell, per the announcement, this is a question for dang not me :)
- invisible_dust 11y agoHi Sam I've used this site forever it's cool. But I'm not like these other guys who want a job or to make a startup I just like tech news so my question is what is the best kind of coffee, as in what's your favorite kind. My top pick is called "Black Cadillac" it's from a local shop and also reminds me of the modest mouse song of the same name.
- sama 11y agoPhilz Philharmonic, made into espresso.
- Rainymood 11y agoName the most influential person in your life! I'm really curious!
- sama 11y agoNo huge surprises here, but probably Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk have done the most to influence my thinking about investing and technology.
- giarc 11y agoYou obviously interact with PG quite a bit. Does the influence from Peter and Elon come from working in person, or from what they've done/wrote/speak about?
- billconan 11y agoI'm currently on H1B, if we get accepted, will my working visa be a problem?
- sama 11y agoWe will connect you to lawyers that can help, but it can be a real challenge unfortunately :(
- billconan 11y agosigh. I wish YC could become an umbrella company who can accept immigrants working on their startups on h1b under the name of YC employee.
- aakashnigam 11y agoThis can be a good hack around the broken immigration system, if it ever happens! No matter how good the founder or team is, an idea requires at-least 3-4 months of nourishment to crystallize into something promising. Unfortunately, on H1B if one quits his job, he needs to leave the country. Around me, I see many good ideas by good people not being pursued because of this.
- mukulsud 11y ago@billconan, u might be interested in unshackled.co. they hire onto a h1b. as an immigrant entrepreneur myself, there are other visas other than a h-1b that would allow you to work/stay through YC.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoHi Sam. What's an example of the most heretical research YCR might pursue? Just trying to get a feel for the scope.
- glxc 11y agoHi @sama TELL US MORE ABOUT Y COMB RESEARCH What area of research will you be conducting?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- viahartdotcom 11y agoDid you read our winter 2016 application? Thanks :)
- coltonrobtoy 11y agoHow involved is YC going to be in 3D Printing?
- sama 11y agoWe've funded a number of startups working on this and I expect we'll fund more.
- mesimoniv 11y agoHow long does it typically take the YC team to review an application?
- sama 11y agoIt honestly hugely varies. Sometimes 2 minutes. The longest I've ever spent on a single application (where I had to do background research) was probably an hour. But I try for my normal cadence to be 6 per hour. Some applications that are really great or really bad are reviewed by only one of us, most are reviewed by about 3, and the ones near the cutoff are reviewed by a lot.
- mesimoniv 11y agoThanks Sam. Really appreciate all the time you spend helping the community. It's amazing & inspiring.
- tyrick 11y agoHow will the size of the W16 batch compare with previous batches?
- sama 11y agoWe never plan this in advance. Depends how many companies we fall in love with.
- blt 11y agoBesides self driving cars, what robotics applications do you see as fundable now or in the next few years? Thanks!
- ju-st 11y agoNot sama, but industrial robots with an intuitive programming interface, like simply showing the robot how to pick & place a part and the robot will repeat it forever. Market it for small business owners. Or you could call it "KUKA robots for everyone".
- tylerhwillis 11y agoCheck out http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/ http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/
- joeyspn 11y agoWhat are your views on the singularity and transhumanism? Do you think a day will come when we'll have to somewhat trascend our human existence in order to keep up with the pace of tech advancements?
- DBCerigo 11y agoCould you tell us more about YC Research? Such as (but definitely not restricted to); - Initial starting size - How you will be picking researchers - Any particularly novel initiatives/methodologies that will be encouraged - How you will measure the group's success
- ddamico 11y agoHey Sam! Best actionable advice you can give to a room full of entrepreneurs in 60 seconds?
- akhilgupta82 11y agoHi Sam, I was wondering how one can get involved in helping out at YC during the batches. Sort of a role where you can work and help out the companies with any questions / requests they have. Basically additional hands on deck for the YC partners.
- sama 11y agoOne of the things that differentiates us from other programs is we don't have outsourced 'mentors'. The advice you get during YC is from the full-time partners and a small group of part-time partners. I think this is important to maintain--we give good advice largely because we think about advising startups all the time. Bringing people in and out to do it occasionally hasn't worked that well for us.
- akhilgupta82 11y agoI appreciate the reply and why YC is structured as such! Thanks!
- zachwooddoughty 11y agoHi Sam -- do you think YC has a role or responsibility in addressing social issues in the bay area or the US?
- bcjordan 11y agoWhat was your first personal investment like?
- sama 11y agoIt was /dev/finance, which became Stripe. (This was sort of funny years later, when I was sorting through my stock certificates. I momentarily forgot that Stripe was originally called something else, and put that stock cert in the "lost cause" pile.)
- bcjordan 11y agoWere you involved with YC at the time? What sold you on the team/business?
- giarc 11y agoHow big is that 'lost cause' pile? If you don't mind sharing.
- daniel_levine 11y ago/dev/payments i believe :)
- steven2012 11y agoWhat makes you qualified to run Ycombinator above any of the other partners?
- sama 11y agoI believe any of us could do it.
- steven2012 11y agoThanks for the response. I'm just curious about what process pg went through to choose you, if you're privy to that. Obviously, he spent many years doing a lot of experimenting to get to his "finished product". And when he decided to leave, he chose you. Do you have any insight as to what in particular he felt you had that felt you would be the best choice?
- runesoerensen 11y agoMaybe there's more to add, but pg did explain why they felt Sam was the best choice: http://blog.ycombinator.com/sam-altman-for-president http://blog.ycombinator.com/sam-altman-for-president
- jenskanis 11y agoHi Sam. Do you have any regrets when it comes to certain companies you turned down? If so, can you give any examples?
- pcmaffey 11y agoAre you ready to talk about which domain you intend to start with for YCR?
- ddamico 11y agoHi Sam! Best actionable advice you can give to a room full of entrepreneurs in 30 seconds? Thanks.
- pcmaffey 11y ago"Build something people love." ~sama
- superfx 11y agoCouple questions regarding YCR: 1. Will the model be group-based where there's a head PI setting the research agenda for a group and researchers working under the PI? If so, what level of independence do you expect individual researchers within a group to have? I.e. is it more like the academic model with postdocs enjoying a fair degree of independence, or more akin to national labs where the research agenda is reasonably fixed and everyone is expected to contribute to the same research program? Or, are you coming up with an entirely different model? 2. In general how hands-on will YCR be in terms of intra-group management? 3. Do you expect to subscribe to all the major publishing houses so that YCR researchers have access to journals like they would at a top-tier university?
- sama 11y ago1. Great question, we've spent a lot of time cycling on this. There will be a "PI" for each group, but the sort of PIs we will bring on will be people who will give large amounts of autonomy to their teams--ie, each group will have a goal, and everyone in that group will be directed to work towards that goal in whatever way they see fit. But given the quality of the PIs we are planning to bring on, if they think a particular direction is really unfruitful, it is likely worth considering. 2. Not very unless asked. 3. Whatever the researchers want.
- erosa01 11y ago@sama Would you call yourself a statistician or a visionary?
- pratim 11y agoSam, we launched Asqway app on 29 September this year (https://itunes.apple.com/app/asqway/id1039694793?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/app/asqway/id1039694793?ls=1&mt=8) and we have been extensively talking to our initial users, we have gathered user’s feedback and updating Asqway app accordingly. Next version of the app will be released in 1 week of time. Up till now we have almost 50 users. So my question is, shall we wait to get more users (I mean at least 1000 users) and then apply for YC Summer 2016 batch or apply now for YC Winter 2016 batch?? What’s your recommendation? Do number of users for the start-up product counts while applying for the YC?? Also, we don’t have monetary model at the moment. So what will you recommend in terms of having monetary model for the start up? We are measuring our growth on the basis of daily active users. Thanks Pratim
- sama 11y agoDon't wait.
- joez 11y agoDo startups, and if so how, need to execute differently in today's frothy funding environment? What are some technologies that excite you?
- brenschluss 11y agoAre there technologies or startups that you haven't funded, despite the team/tech/product/strategy being great, simply because it was a decade or so too soon? (For example: funding VR in the early 00s vs. funding VR in 2013, etc.)
- qrasi 11y ago@sama - Based on my friends who have previously applied to YC .. it seems as if applications submitted in the last 3-4 days before the deadline, don't really get reviewed. When submitted early, they would notice YC related views to their website and Youtube video. Unfortunately, when submitted close to the deadline, there were no views.
- sama 11y agoThe YouTube counter has never seemed to work well with our reviewing software, so I'd ignore that. That said we do get to spend more time on applications that get submitted early (as we've always said) so there is a slight advantage to submitting early.
- byoung2 11y agoWe submitted early for last winter, and we noticed 4 complete views of our video, which was comforting.
- dshchung 11y agoHi Sam, you have previously mentioned in an interview that University of Waterloo comes to mind when you think of a school that produces great YC alums. As most of these founders were unproven and untested individuals at the time of applying to YC, what qualities do you feel has made the difference for them throughout the program?
- sama 11y agoThey seem to get trained well to think of new ideas. They also get a very solid engineering education.
- jkaunisv1 11y agoNot a YC applicant or alum, but as a Waterloo CS grad - the co-op program was invaluable. 4 months study alternating with 4 months work in a real job = 6 different workplaces to learn from, and coming out of the degree with 2 years real experience. A lot of students, especially on the CS side, are getting jobs at startups for their co-op terms.
- ghufran_syed 11y agoAnyone aware of well-regarded US-based computer science programs with similar co-op programs? They seem pretty sparse when I google...
- bcjordan 11y agoWhat are some of the biggest pain points you see early YC companies struggling with (esp. during batches)? Are there any unsolved problems for growing companies you wish someone would apply to solve?
- sama 11y agoThe biggest problem is failing to make a product that some users love, but then thinking they will solve their problems by doing everything else well. The second-biggest problem is probably cofounder fallouts. Internal communication and management structure are always big problems for growing companies that I wish someone would solve.
- ajju 11y agoHey Sam, re: solving internal communication, you should checkout a non-profit called http://www.helloinnerspace.org/ http://www.helloinnerspace.org/ funded by this group called YC ;) Seriously though - after attending their cofounder communication workshop, we invited them to do it for our whole team. I think Innerspace is the best tool I have seen to prevent cofounder fallouts and improve internal communication.
- CrackpotGonzo 11y agoHi from Chicago @sama! You guys have been talking about your investments in HW startups. What are the top 3 things that you look for in a hardware startup application at YC?
- waterlesscloud 11y agoWhat do you think about the economic disruption that is being caused be increased automation? As we develop broader and broader forms of automation, it seems like that disruption can only increase in both speed and quantity. What can YC and Silicon Valley as a whole to mitigate the problems this will cause?
- sama 11y agoI think that technology increases wealth but also concentrates it. We are all better off, but the inequality is likely to get worse over time. This has been going to some degree since the first tools were developed. I'm not ready to talk in much detail yet, but I do think YC/SV/me personally can and should help address this.
- susiwbkpagwjs 11y agoHi @sama. We've recently seen Google and NASA among others open their patent pools to startups. What are your thoughts on this, and YC's stance on intellectual property?
- tedmiston 11y agoHi, Sam. Big fan of YC itself, the blog, and your tweets. How long, or to what sort of benchmarks, do you think a startup engineer should marinate in the startup scene before being taken seriously as a technical founder? And follow up: Do you give extra consideration to an application for founders that have been employees at another YC company prior?
- pcmaffey 11y agoAny advice for single founders applying? (other than get a cofounder...)
- sama 11y agoThe burden of proof to show us you can handle starting a startup is higher. So some evidence that you can execute by yourself (i.e. progress) goes a long way.
- DanBlake 11y agoIs there any intention of adding a new type of incubator that isnt so location specific? For instance, I would love to be in YC- But just like many older (30+) folks, I have a family and simply cannot move to SF. The 'move to SF' restriction is the one thing I hate about YC- Its also why I think some competing incubators are picking up steam, who focus on global teams. This may be disagreed upon- But I truly feel the 'move to SF' restriction is almost prejudicial against older folks. I get there is immense value in being in the valley (I just moved from SF), but I just dont think thats a reason not to find a way the system couldn't work either remotely or satellite based.
- giarc 11y agoYou may be interested in the YC Fellowship. https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/ https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/
- sama 11y agoWe know moving is hard, but startups are hard. So much of the value of our program comes from in-person interactions. As you said, there are lots of other options for people who don't want to move, so I don't feel that fixing this is our most urgent problem. That said, we are trying remote teams in the YC Fellowship, and we'll evaluate how they worked at the end of this first batch.
- erosa01 11y ago@sama If you had yourself and your startup Loopt apply now for YC, would it win?
- tedmiston 11y agoI've been watching the SF startup scene from afar. In the midwest (Cincinnati, OH) we have growing scenes, but my biggest problem is finding true senior engineers and real technical mentorship. Do you think this is something one needs to be in SF to attain or are there other ways?
- sama 11y agoI certainly don't think you need to be in SF for it, though it is easy to find here. If I had no family ties and wanted to be in tech, I'd still move to the bay area even with the cost of living being what it is. But I don't think it's as critical as e.g. moving to LA to be in movies or moving to DC to be in politics.
- erosa01 11y ago@sama What are some things that you have approached differently from PG?
- aakashnigam 11y agoWhat would be the right time for an idea that involves some technical depth to apply to YC? In other words, hypothetically, if YC had existed during the 90s, at what stage should Google Guys have applied to YC (Between 1995-1998, A) when the idea struck (mid 1995) B) When it started crawling the web (around 1996), or C) when they bought the domain (1998). Thanks!
- aakashnigam 11y agoSome idea that is (a) technically complex enough to baffle most PhDs but (b) practical enough to constitute the core of an amazing demo. An idea with technical depth, plus practical feasibility does provides an all-important barrier to entry, a shield against execution
- sama 11y agoA or B.
- aakashnigam 11y agoAny advice on differentiating such idea in the YC application, from the herd, building services (an app/website where good design, paired with user traction stands out)? Shall we focus on? A. Research side (the actual research ideas, tough to explain in 300 words, can be discussed in brainstorming session) B. The product it will enable. (UI based concept demo, with product/market fit that will it will enable)
- antognini 11y agoVery broadly speaking, fundamental research can be divided into two categories: (1) developing techniques to accomplish some very difficult, but useful task; and (2) answering questions which are intrinsically interesting.* Research in fusion and developing self-driving cars are examples of the first category. Finding exoplanets and the Higgs boson are examples of the second. Will YC Research be funding research in both categories, or just the first? * (I know some people like to call the second category "pure" research, but I think that betrays a bias against working on more practical problems.)
- sama 11y agoHonestly it will mostly be category 1 to start, but there is at least one category 2 project we want to pursue.
- bicknergseng 11y agoHey Sam, what's the status of the YC Fellowship? Are you going to do another round?
- sama 11y agoVery likely yes.
- susiwbkpagwjs 11y agoHey @sama. Are there any emerging technologies or research areas you think are in peril at this time, due to lack of funding, political climate, or diverted focus? How will YCResearch identify the fields to support basic research in?
- jordanbartow 11y agoWhat's the most important question on the application?
- sama 11y agoThe first thing I read is "What is your company going to make?" Then I scan everything else quickly for evidence of something exceptional--something the founders have done, a great insight on this idea, or something impressive about progress to date.
- cvinette 11y agoHi Sam, thanks for doing this! Say you are working on a project that is really similar to another product that has been validated and successful in another part of the world. Would you see it as a good indicator, or does it mean nothing given the culture differences? What would be the best way to take advantage of that intel? Thanks and have a good day!
- akhilgupta82 11y agoMost startups have a good mix of technical co-founders and sometimes a non-technical, business athlete. What are some of roles and responsibilities YC has advised the non-technical founder hone on during their time at YC?
- rybosome 11y agoHow will success be measured in YCR? Given that you mentioned decades-long efforts being acceptable, how will you differentiate between fruitful and fruitless research? Finally, are there any technologies you're particularly interested in and into which you're hoping to fund research?
- bputano 11y agoHi Sam, We're a startup in a non-technical industry. We are high-growth minded, with a growing platform of users and plans to create connected hardware devices. What metrics would you need to see from a company like ours to make it into YC?
- viahartdotcom 11y agoIs it reasonable to view YC as a startup whose goal is to become a monopoly? If so, what competition is most worrying to you?
- grownseed 11y agoHi Sam, the YC Research announcement got me very excited, particularly as someone who experiences the pain points you described first hand on a daily basis. First question, would YC Research be limited to the US or would you consider other countries (e.g. Canada in my case)? Also, would you ever consider partnering with existing Public/Government institutions? There are lots of very good people already working on some really interesting projects (yes, even in the public sector :) ), and I believe they need support and direction (and some actual business sense). So to re-phrase my question, would YC Research ever consider some sort of support/consulting platform for existing (possibly public) organizations? Thank you very much for taking the time!
- igravious 11y agoA similar YC Research location related query so I'll file it here. How about the EU? The cynic in me would love to be proved wrong by YC Research. I don't agree that academia is as broken as many here contend but I am intrigued by the re-imagining. What I think people overlook is that academia is a blend of education and research whereas YC Research and other research-only institutes don't have to worry about educating the next generation so it's apples and oranges folks. Still... I genuinely wish the venture well, very exciting move.
- sama 11y agoLimited to the US for now but maybe not forever. Someone in Canada should start something similar! Yes, very happy to collaborate with outside orgs.
- grownseed 11y agoThank you Sam! Follow-up question: would you be interested in helping me start something similar in Canada, or know people who would? :)
- HelgeSeetzen 11y agoTandemLaunch (www.tandemlaunch.com) is a close proxy, though still oriented to ultimately build technology companies (but still very deep tech focused). We are obviously not in the same scale league as yc, but we are in Canada :).
- JJC1138 11y agoI'm considering applying for YC but I think my idea (a fairly simple time management app for smartwatches) might be a bit too modest. How small of an idea is too small?
- sama 11y agoWe don't mind ideas that start off sounding modest if you have a great answer to how it could possibly develop into something huge. In fact, we like ideas like that.
- bcjordan 11y agoFrom pg's How to Get Startup Ideas[0]: > Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as "toys" often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think. [0]: http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
- JJC1138 11y agoI'm considering applying for YC but I think my idea (a fairly simple time management app for smartwatches) might be a bit too modest. How small of an idea is too small?
- jordanbartow 11y agoI'm having trouble with the what are you making portion of the application. I know the product speaks for itself but no matter how I try to explain it to people they get confused without seeing it which means I'm not doing a great job of explaining it. Trying to compare it to existing technology doesn't work well with the product, or I can't find the right comparison. What's your advice on how to best answer this question, aside from being concrete and matter of fact?
- sama 11y agoYou have to learn how to do this. If you can't get good at explaining what your product does, you will struggle in all aspects of your business. Make this your number one priority (though also consider that if people have a hard time understanding what you're doing, it may be a sign that it's not a good idea).
- jordanbartow 11y agoThanks for the feedback. I think my product is an idea that sounds bad or confusing but is really solid or has the capability of transforming into something really brilliant. I just need to focus in. Ive shown large groups of people the product and they immediately understand it and always have one or two use cases for the product.
- bcjordan 11y agoDo you think a startup could realistically end up being the entity to develop some of the earliest significant AGI? What would look like promising, realistic starting points for -- or even attributes of -- such a nascent startup? e.g., chat bots, development platforms, intelligent agents for games?
- sama 11y agoYes, for sure. I think the starting points you mention are very promising ones.
- susiwbkpagwjs 11y agoSam, should everyone's genomes be sequenced? Will most Americans have their DNA sequenced by 2025,2030? When will we see the peak of the commercial and medical results of having a sequenced population? What could prevent us from getting all our genes sequenced? Shouldn't we try to facilitate mass sequencing, for all the medical benefits it could provide? What can YCombinator do to influence corporate and political entities to collaborate and reach a solution to expedite this process?
- sama 11y agoYes, I think so, and I'd be surprised if it's not commonplace by 2030. I think the best thing YC can do is fund startups enabling this (and offering good applications on top of it).
- crabasa 11y agoApologies for the meta comment, but this post has been banished from the HN front page [1]. Any ideas why? ---- Update: It has been restored as of 9:33am PST. No sure why the downvotes, I found this is be somewhat amazing given whose post this was. [1] as of 9:28am PST at least
- susiwbkpagwjs 11y ago@sama Sam, what are the barriers to a successful IoT in coming years? Will there be a war of standards?
- networked 11y agoHow relevant is the old RFS 5 (Development on Handhelds, http://old.ycombinator.com/rfs5.html http://old.ycombinator.com/rfs5.html) today compared to 2009 when it was published?
- sama 11y agoCertainly hasn't happened yet. It may be that human/phone I/O is just too slow. It's not the area I'm most focused on, but would be interesting if it happened.
- davidhhenu 11y agoHello Sam, I am Honduran and applying for the winter 2016 batch with other two co founders. One of my co founders (Venezuelan) and I have student F-1 Visas. Since we cannot work yet until we are at OPT we won't be able to make any profits until January or February 2016. Beta for our platform is due tomorrow so we can have a demo but users won't be able to use it for now. Is this going to affect our application? If so, what would you recommend?
- sama 11y agoThat's ok; we understand.
- davidhhenu 11y agoGreat! Thanks. Have you had any other successful Honduran entrepreneurs at YC?
- wlamont 11y agoIf you were just starting out again what industry would you focus your efforts on now?
- mesimoniv 11y agoHi Sam, Thanks for supporting us all with your time & insights. Given the rise & success of things like Hack Reactor and Nano Degrees plus the YC RSF for Education. 1) Do you have any specific thoughts on innovations you would like to see in Secondary Education, specifically Jr. High and High School? 2) What about Elementary Education in the US?
- mtoecker 11y agoSam, are you seeing any VC interest in industrial devices, such as those that enable better predictive maintenance, monitoring, and collaboration in industrial facilities like power plants, chemicals, etc? @mtoecker
- susiwbkpagwjs 11y agoSam, what do you think about microexposure to artificial toxins such as pesticides and antibiotics in the modern American diet, which recent research has demonstrated to have significant effects on our health as compared to the diets of our grandparents? We've mainly left this problem in the hands of the FDA. Is it time for a deeper quantitative investigation? Is this an area YCResearxh might look into?
- AngrySkillzz 11y agowhat is a toxin
- ivankirigin 11y agoI was excited about the research announcement! I've been thinking about this for a while: - small companies rarely fund university research - the grant application process is complex - grad students get paid so little compared to tech workers - hiring a PhD student before they finish means abandoning their research Do you think universities and research can be changed to get more companies funding research? I can imagine startups can get some great work done efficiently while increasing private funding of research.
- sama 11y agoMaybe, but I'm not sure small companies are the best funders for this. One of the nicest surprises about the YCR announcement was how many very rich people and large organizations reached out saying they wanted to give money. It seems there is a lot of potential energy here that's been looking for something to do.
- ivankirigin 11y agoThat's awesome. They want to give money outside any specific research initiative? That YC brand is strong!
- baristaGeek 11y agoAs of 2015, how common is it that Y Combinator is the first money for a startup?
- mindcrime 11y ago1. Would / will you ever consider opening an East Coast branch? I understand all the "stuff" about why SV is great for startups, but there will always be people who can't /won't get up and travel completely to the other side of the country for an extended period of time. And while the EC might not be the startup hotbed that SV area is, it's quite clear that there is a LOT of startup activity and some great startups being formed out here. Wouldn't you want to tap into some of that? 2. In regards to YC Research, can you tell us anything more about the (general) topic area(s) you will be interested in? And maybe expand a little bit more on what kind of mechanisms might be put in place to facilitate working with outside researchers (hopefully including independent researchers and / or other startups).
- zcdziura 11y agoEspecially in Boston. Boston has a TON of startups in the area.
- wnissen 11y agoThis was 2007, but Paul Graham describes Boston VCs as being slow to act, so they stopped doing Demo Day out there. http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html
- JayNeely 11y agoTechStars hasn't had a problem. Boston cohorts have raised ~$400 million in VC so far: http://www.techstars.com/companies/ http://www.techstars.com/companies/
- ejdyksen 11y agoYC used to be in Boston for half of the year: http://old.ycombinator.com/ycca.html http://old.ycombinator.com/ycca.html
- cryoshon 11y agoTrue, but from what I know, it's much more of an old-boys network rather than any kind of stranger to stranger demo based conversion. People trying to make it that way tend to flop here, as there aren't many venues.
- harryh 11y agoHow far do you think new Silicon Valley companies (and YC companies in particular) have progressed in providing fairer equity grants to employees? In particular I'm interested in what the norms are for "if you leave the company you must exercise in 90 days" type terms. I know that you've been working on this problem personally and a few high profile companies have publicly announced changes. But what's going on with new small companies? What are the current norms? I know that YC takes care of a lot of the legal work when setting up new YC companies. What do you currently recommend for employee option grants?
- sama 11y agoI mostly only know about YC companies other than what I've read in the press about large companies, but it seems like this has gotten much better. We want to create a new employee option plan with all of our recommended fixes. We've been busy, but we'll hopefully get to it soon. We'll open-source it, of course.
- pcmaffey 11y agoHow is the remote aspect of YCF going? Something to explore more?
- sama 11y agoToo early to say. We really won't know for another month at least.
- csentropy 11y agoWhat is the best way to get connected to the YC network if you are not a YC alum?
- berpasan 11y agoFind something you can offer then and help them with... And be a hustler.
- csentropy 11y agoThat's what I intended to ask, my question wasn't clear. Is there a way someone could contribute to the YC community as an outsider? Ideas welcome.
- berpasan 11y agoLook at what specific YC companies do, so you can infer what they might need... Lots of founders have blogs, Twitter, etc, and will speak their minds up out there. If you think you can create your own startup, you probably can do something of value to another, specially early stage ones... It can be as simple being an user of one of their products and offering feedback. I personally looked at YC company lists, saw ones that were on a similar space as mine, and, since I am from another country (Brazil), offered help. I ended up knowing a couple of YC founders that way. Just remember to give first and always be nice... Startup founders usually have their hands full, won't always be able to help or even reply to you. And be resonable, don't think Drew Houston will become your best friend and take a bullet for you just because you sent him an email saying you like Dropbox...
- qunicorn 11y agoHi Sam (&all), We curated all interesting YCombinator Q&As and created a wiki. www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator Some of these are from HN and some from the 'How to start a startup' course. 1] Help us curate more. Just submit link to pavan@askmeanything.me and we will have it posted with due credits to you and the source. 2] We will soon categorize them as 'application Q&A', 'co-founder Q&A' etc to make it more easy to read. Def look for feedback.
- tmaly 11y ago@sama I am about to launch a beta version of a service I find very useful in the food industry. I have spoken to a decent number of people during my customer development phase and everyone is excited about the service. However, I have not thought a lot about monetizing it. Right now I am just bootstrapping it and will release it as a free service. What is your take on free services and monetizing them?
- sama 11y agoIt's ok as long as you have a plan to make money eventually (i.e. http://blog.samaltman.com/unit-economics http://blog.samaltman.com/unit-economics) However, why not charge on day 1? It sounds like something people should pay for. And charging always makes it clear if people really like your service or not.
- tmaly 11y ago@sama thanks, I will have to give it some thought as to how to monetize it.
- dontmitch 11y agoDo you think charging on day 1 is typically the smarter route (e.g. to better validate the product, prove the unit economics, etc.)? We've been struggling with the question of when to monetize since there are also some strong points in favor of waiting. Some of those include avoiding a local maximum by way of pigeonholing yourself early, making it easier to reach scale and get feedback from a broader market, etc. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. edit: To clarify, we have two monetization strategies that we think are especially viable—the question is when should a startup pull the trigger on their monetization strategy.
- gull 11y ago> why not charge on day 1? Some of the most successful companies, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, didn't charge on day 1.
- 11y ago
- hollaur 11y agoHi @sama ! I submitted our application, and I wrote YC this letter on Medium (https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/dear-y-combinator-we-wrote-this-for-you-160c4820a68b https://medium.com/@laurenholliday_/dear-y-combinator-we-wro...). What else can one do to stand out? I'm so worried our application will get lost in a pile of all the others. Also, is it possible that we'll hear from you before the 28th? Thanks! Lauren =)
- zeeshanm 11y agoAny advice for single founder applying? Most of the people I talked to advice me to find a co-founder to increase my odds of getting in. I don't necessarily agree with them. I have been doing this startup for over an year now. It has growth with a strong potential for more.
- sama 11y agoThis sounds obvious but "have a good startup". If you can show us you're making great progress as a solo founder, we're much more willing to believe you can handle it going forward.
- kohanz 11y agoWhat is your take on the value proposition for an older, experienced engineer (e.g. 10+ years) joining a startup as an early employee (e.g. non-founder)? I get the sense from what I read and hear that there is romance and then there is reality. Would love to get an honest take from someone with your perspective.
- sama 11y agoIt totally depends on the company. Are you going to get as meaningful (i.e. more than 1%) equity grant and real responsibility? Do the founders seems good, and good to work with? Obviously if you can join the next Facebook as an early employee, that's really great :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pcmaffey 11y agoTo add to Sam's take, I'd say the real benefit of joining a startup is the opportunity to work closely on a problem that you care about. Do you want to expand your POV and learn new skills? Do you want a high-degree of personal responsibility for your work? Your role will change every 6 months, as the company's priorities do. Compensation and relationship dynamics are crucial, of course, but your success and experience will be largely determined by how much you want to take ownership for your work.
- karlosferra 11y agoHi Sam, Have YC considered doing a lower tier of funding? Funding 120k is good for early startups, but I think YC could have far more reach and impact if it had an option to provide less capital to a greater number of startups. The purpose being to allow founders to support themselves and fully focus on their startup without having to worry about daily jobs. I see two major benefits: 1) YC would have greater and broader impact since for the same amount of seed would be possible to found 12-15 more companies that are ready to move from the idea to execution stage. 2) (this touches me personally) For non US founders, we have to worry about rent, food etc. I believe that if founders had the oportunity to fully focus on their startups for 3 months without a daily job, it would have tremendous impact for the early startups, and as a nice side effect YC could have another pool of really good candidates/ideas. At the end of the 3 months the founders would have had a chance to demonstrate themselves, their execution level, etc., at a very low cost. I truly believe the ROI on something like this would be considerable. I know that capital is not the only (and arguably not even the most important) advantage of been admitted to YC, but personally speaking, if I had this option 3 years ago I'd have pursued it no questions asked. I feel that there might be other founders that would be in the same boat. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks! Carlos.
- arjunnarayan 11y agoThis is the entire point of the YC Fellowships, and their plan for that is to scale it to an order of magnitude plus beyond normal YC. They're doing a trial run this year of YCF, and it sounds like that's going well.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sama 11y agoWe have this: http://fellowship.ycombinator.com http://fellowship.ycombinator.com
- DrNuke 11y agoHello @sama, do you see -as mr president- YC (with YCR, YCF, alumni and partners) acting more and more as a self-sustaining network in the coming years? How do you think big corps and govs will react? It's extremely interesting to see this emerge but also scary, if you think of unpredictable consequences. How do you feel? Thanks and good luck.
- sama 11y agoWhat about it do you find scary?
- DrNuke 11y agoYou as a network are starting putting hands into matters that are under control or direct influence of politics, very big corporations, state-driven industries and even geopolitics: AI, energy, medicine, automation, food, space and so on. It is not dropbox anymore. In 20-30 years, your boost may lead to the disruption of human society as it is organised now.
- sama 11y agoI certainly hope for the better.
- oemerax 11y agoSam, we've applied to YC Winter 2016 within the first five days, but thinking about making minor changes to the application. Does "editing" have a negative-effect? Do you read the whole application again or just the edits? Thanks in advance!
- sama 11y agoNo negative effect, but partners that read your application before the edits won't read it again.
- baristaGeek 11y agoBased on the current performance of the first YC Fellowship, will you have future editions of this programme? You guys mention that it's for founders who haven't raised any money at all (although something such as a free-equity grant from a university is ok). If you do plan to invest in YC Fellows via an equity deal in the near future, how acceptable would a -very small- investment from FFF for exchange in equity would be before getting the Fellowship?
- sama 11y agoWe will probably make it an ongoing program, and if so we will make it an equity deal. I'm not sure what our ongoing stance on having already raised money will be, but likely there will be some sort of carveout for a very small amount of friends and family money.
- sarciszewski 11y agoWhat is the weirdest or most outlandish application you've seen to date? Did you accept it? Was it successful?
- 6thSigma 11y agoWill there be a Startup School this year?
- v-java88 11y agoHi Sam, Thanks for engaging with the HN crowd :) I have spoken to Jessica (Livingston) about this, but wanted to get your thoughts as well. My question is simple, yet complex at its nature: How important is the relationship of the founders? (For simplicity let's assume there are two of them).
- bennalle 11y agoAs a student I feel my interests are outside the traditional lines of what is taught in the classroom so was wondering what you thought the best way to bring entrepreneurship to schools was, particularly middle and high schools?
- jacomienvdm 11y agoHow does YC determine the need and market fit of startups focused on underserved communities and emerging markets within developing countries (such as Africa) and what expertise do the YC partners have to offer with regards to startups focused on these markets?
- kayuque 11y agoI wasnt invited to the Fellowship, I'm still working on the idea but my cofounders lost interest. Should I apply or wait till I find new cofounders.
- viahartdotcom 11y agoAn application preceded by what you just wrote is DOA
- crazypyro 11y agoHi Sam, I have a question relating to AI and YCR. I remember your blog about AI mentioning how many of the best private companies are very secretive about their advances and research. Was YCombinator Research heavily influenced by this secrecy in specifically the AI fields? Is YCR going to have a focus on AI, at least initially? Can you give any insight into the fields of research you are focusing on?
- robotnoises 11y agoHi Sam, In your opinion, what is the greatest impediment to getting better software into government. Second, is there a market opportunity in alleviating this/these impediments?
- sama 11y agoSelling to government is just very slow, and the NIH problems are often intense. I do think it's getting much better though. We've become very interested in startups producing software for government.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Jemaclus 11y agoTwo questions: * Would you consider investing in a company that invents a toilet paper holder where the TP can only be inserted in the OVER position? This is a huge problem world-wide that should be solved immediately. The market is huge! B2B, B2C, you name it, there's toilet paper! * All seriousness aside, do you have any advice for building an app that has no clear money-making potential? I've had this idea brewing for years, but no matter how much I think about, I have no idea how to monetize it.
- jayzalowitz 11y agoAll good investors know it goes under, thats where the market is.
- Jemaclus 11y agoCategorically not true! All investors who put their toilet paper on the roll in the under position have such poor judgment that they're technically just gamblers!
- ScottBurson 11y agoI was a dedicated "over" guy until one of my cats discovered how easy and fun it was to unroll it. I had to switch to "under".
- FlyingLawnmower 11y agoHi Sam, I'm a graduating college senior, and I've accepted a job at a very big company in the tech industry. Right now, it makes the most financial sense for me to join a big company and pay off my debt quickly, but at some point in the future I'd love to scratch that entrepreneurial itch and apply to YC. How do I maximize my time at a big company to gain relevant skills to keep the possibility of a startup open in the future?
- sama 11y agoThe best things you can do there are meet great potential cofounders, and get better at writing software. Also don't get sucked into living an expensive lifestyle when you get that high-paying job--this has killed many people's once-promising futures.
- slantedview 11y agoWhich begs the question - how does one avoid living an expensive lifestyle in the bay/SF?
- brotoss 11y agoCook all of your own meals. Don't buy drinks at the bars if you go out. Don't buy expensive shit, you don't need the newest iphone every year or name brand designer stuff. Get a roommate. Not rocket sciene
- OmarIsmail 11y agoIf you can get very efficient at it or you find the activity a source of leisure, then cooking your own food is a great cost savings. However, for someone in the tech industry the opportunity cost of not investing in themselves (i.e. coding, reading about code, meeting people, etc) for the same amount of time they are cooking (grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, cleaning, etc) usually isn't worth it. To me cooking your own food seems like a penny-wise, pound foolish thing. Of course eating out healthily multiple times a day gets insanely expensive, so that's not really an option either. That's why I'm a big advocate of soylent.
- baristaGeek 11y agoAny plans for an international college tour?
- jayzalowitz 11y agoLooking at who you accept now and some of YCs biggest hits, its seeming like your earlier investments (Dropbox, airbnb) probably wouldn't make it through today's YC filter. Do you guys think this is an issue, if so how are you working to correct it?
- sama 11y agoDisagree. No one at YC could interview the Airbnb guys and not fund them. I didn't know Drew back then but I expect it would have been the same thing for him.
- baristaGeek 11y agoI think he is not referring to the interview process, but rather to the "skimming through the application" process.
- jayzalowitz 11y agoYeah, I am sure having met them they would have gotten in, im talking purely getting to interview.
- alexperezpaya 11y agoDo you have anything against Spaniards? I have seen lot of Spaniards applying to YC and they got rejected/ignored with awesome projects. Do you even read all applications? Posted applications with all urls tracked and we saw 0 clicks... How can you judge our product without testing it? Did you even watched our pitch? But in the other hand, I saw a lot of stupid companies backed by YC (Uber for X, Airbnb for X, Tinder for X, Y for X startups) I don't mind about it, it's your money, just asking for solid reasons. This is going to blacklist me for YC but I don't care. Kind regards, Alex.
- sama 11y agoa) Definitely not. b) It's possible if something was deeply wrong in an application we wouldn't even watch the video, but the counts never seem to work. Sometimes if an application is clearly a no after watching the video and reading the text, we don't look at the product, but it's rare. c) Barcelona is my favorite city!
- alexperezpaya 11y agoNice to hear that, we'll keep trying. You are welcomed in Spain :)
- jannotti 11y agoIf your application came across at all like your post, it's pretty clear why it wasn't strongly considered.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- the_economist 11y agoBeetailer and Bitnami went through Y Combinator. They are both companies with Spanish founders.
- dchichkov 11y agoIt seems like YC had done a great job on standartizing YC startup documents that protect both founders and investors from each other and promote cooperation. Are there any plans to do the same thing to standardize contracts for early employees? (i.e. shouldn't early employess, investing their under-market salary/time receive the same conditions/protection of their investments as VCs?)
- sama 11y agoFor stock compensation, yes!
- dchichkov 11y agoThanks for the answer! I'm glad that YC is paying attention to that area. I hope that any under-the-market-salary investments from employees would start getting the same treatment as any other investors money (e.g. dilution cap, not vesting cliff).
- bakztfuture 11y agoHey Sam! Just wanted to ask: 1) how does being a single founder eventually impact the dynamics of a company? 2) any heuristics for finding the one metric that matters to optimize on? 3) any tips for projects less iterative and more focused on a "complex coordination" modality Thanks!
- davidcaseria 11y agoHi @sama, you've been outspoken about the potential long term side effects of prolonged 0% interest rates. What do you think will be the worst side effect? Do you have any general advice for individuals to avoid the bad effects?
- giis 11y agoConsidering the fact that we are more than 1-billion people with booming economy (some redtapes are there but..), do you have plans for purely India (/subcontinent) specific programmes in near future?
- lhfaria 11y agoHi Sam, I read a post of you guys saying that a lot of founders think they're too early to apply to YC. That's my case. We're just in our first thousands of dollars in revenue, and honestly when I think of YC - no matter how much confident we are with our business - I believe we don't really stand a change against other applicants. Any specific advice/thoughts on this?
- sama 11y agoEvery batch, we fund some people with just an idea. And lots and lots of people with just a prototype. The bar is higher but it's clearly possible.
- lhfaria 11y agoGlad to hear that. Thanks!
- paul 11y agoMany of our most successful companies entered YC with little more than an idea. Slope is more important than Y intercept - https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-profound-life-lessons-from-Stanford-Professor-John-Ousterhout/answer/Eric-Conner?srid=tEm&share=1 https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-profound-life-lesson...
- pbreit 11y agoI would be more concerned that you would think that vs that being your situation.
- sahawneh 11y agoHello Sam, Which application questions do you think best measure determination and flexibility of founders?
- pcmaffey 11y agoWith YC's network growing bigger and bigger, how do you keep alumni involved and engaged so you don't lose/dilute the benefits of that network? (arguably the best thing about YC...)
- sama 11y agoThis seems to be getting better not worse...
- anonymous1212 11y agoI am a solo founder with strong technical and design chops. I am a high-level thinker, and I spend much of my time with big picture problems, establishing the vision, and figuring out a practical plan to get there from where we are now. But I can also execute on that vision, and build the entire system end-to-end. And I have an abnormally high level of standard. I strongly believe in quality software that just works. I am torn about submitting an application. I have a list of 20+ customers waiting for the first beta release and who are actively asking about progress (and willing to post payment!) The idea and particular niche market has been churning in my mind for several years, and over the past 18 months, the vision has materialized into a real product. Market trends are pointing upwards, it is ripe for disruption and could be a winner takes all game. I am weeks away from private-beta depending on my productivity (this has been a side project). I have a wife, 7 month old daughter, and a cushy full-time salary with little work demands. I have been in two long-term employer relationships (4 and 5 years) and at each made huge impacts on molding the product, despite not being hired for that. But I am bored and want the freedom and flexibility to work on my own ideas. But one thing I have always lacked is a talent network. Is this something being accepted into HN would help with? I honestly get the feeling that most applicants are searching for direction and help with flushing things out, things that I am already confident in. What do you make of a solo guy like me, with a solid product that is almost ready for market? I'm a proud guy, and there is that part of me that wants to just continue being a Lone Wolf.
- gearoidoc 11y agoIf you have people willing to pay for your product and a clear go to market strategy then why do you particularly need YC?
- DatLoneWolfLife 11y agoLeaving this here: https://twitter.com/DatLoneWolfLife https://twitter.com/DatLoneWolfLife
- ScottBurson 11y agoI'm not sama, but here are some thoughts anyway. If this is really something you think could be big (a "winner takes all game" as you say), you're going to have to grow a company to address the opportunity -- which will mean giving up the lone wolf thing. That's a choice you have to make personally. I'm sure being the lone wolf is more comfortable, and it's entirely possible that you could build yourself a nice little business that way, but you won't be able to own the market. Once you decide which way you want to go, applying to YC or not will be an easier decision. I do expect that YC could help you with your network.
- jmtame 11y agoWhat's the best book you've read on poker strategy? :)
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoHi Sam, thanks for your time with us today! How do you see an application from someone with clear track records in a field, but applying with an idea in a quite different field?
- sama 11y agoWe like that. We are looking for impressive people. I think intelligence is somewhat fungible--if you were great at one thing, you can probably learn another thing.
- mooremo 11y agoStar Wars or Star Trek?
- ratsimihah 11y agoAMA AMAAAAAH WATAAAAH!
- fgimenez 11y agoRegarding the research program, what sort of research projects are you looking at? While you are putting a considerable amount of money into the project, it obviously won't be able to fund experimentally expensive projects. Also, many research projects (like bioinformatics) require enormous amounts of difficult to obtain data (e.g. Hospital records, blood samples, etc...). Do you have a plan to help those kinds of labs build collaborations, or do you expect to bring in researchers who will be able to "figure it out"? Finally, are you looking specifially for trained PhD researchers, or is this open to anybody?
- sama 11y agoView my donation as seed capital. I expect we'll commit $100M+ to some projects over time. We do have plans for collaboration with some institutions for our first group. Open to anyone great! No PhD required.
- suyash 11y agoHi Sam, Please list your 3 most favorite book for Entrepreneurship, business. I'm an software engineer but have very little entrepreneurship experience. Thanks
- sama 11y agoI don't really think you can learn this from books--you need to just jump in and do it. You might find some of these videos helpful: http://startupclass.samaltman.com http://startupclass.samaltman.com
- firloop 11y agoDoes YC ever raise capital from outside investors like a traditional company, or is the equity you take from companies you fund liquid enough to sustain YC?
- sama 11y agoSort of complicated. The short answer is yes, we do have some outside investors.
- raymondgh 11y agoHey Sam! Much respect. Sometimes when I watch an interview with you (such as a recent Stanford class), it seems like the discussion is very one-sided. I don't perceive you normally as stating your opinions authoritatively, but I fear that many are afraid to contest your claims or disagree with you, even in violation of their own beliefs. My questions are first whether you have noticed any kind of mass-submissiveness to or blind acceptance of to the YC Philosophy, and second, who do you think are the proponents of the most compelling contrasting views?
- sama 11y agoInteresting. It feels like people disagree with me all day! I've noticed that the best founders are the most likely to disagree (and have well-reasoned arguments). I really hope I never get to the point in life where people stop disagreeing with me.
- spanacus 11y agoHey Sam, I am very interested in hearing more about the office hours initiative ran by Michael. Do you guys plan on scaling that up? I strongly believe in democratizing access to people and believe YC is doing this with all the effort it has put into Starup School , Fellowship and all these programs. We are actually building products towards the goal of democratizing access to people so very expected to hopefully work together
- sama 11y agoYes. Though I'll remind everyone that literally anyone can apply to any YC program. One of our biggest differentiators is that you don't need an intro to talk to us.
- mrdrozdov 11y agoHi Sam, Do you have any suggestions that would help non-technical startup employees get visa entry to the US?
- pyankoff 11y agoHi Sam, what skills would you learn today to maximize your "founder potential"? Web/mobile development is kind of commodity already. One can learn nuclear physics, but it doesn't feel like you can hack on it a lot.
- thecosas 11y agoWhich came first: Hacker News or Reddit?
- sama 11y agoreddit by a lot.
- dnautics 11y agoDo you think ycr will host public lecture series for interesting research topics?
- roc123 11y agoWould you consider opening a branch of YC in Manchester, UK? Huge amount of talent there being wasted in banks and consulting companies. Low living costs, excellent universities, large pool of engineering talent, growing startup community.
- geezsundries 11y agoI'm mid-application for the YC Winter 2016 cycle, but I'm concerned because neither my cofounder nor I come from a technical background, yet our idea is technical. Do you see this as a deterrent to being accepted?
- sama 11y agoHonestly yes, that's a negative. It'd be possible to overcome with a really good answer on how you will get the technology built, but it's harder than ever to be an entirely non-technical team--recruiting engineers is just so difficult and expensive.
- geezsundries 11y agoGot it. Thank you for the reply. We both work in technology, so we do know people but were honestly hoping YC could help us with a sort of road map. The idea is worth what we may have to overcome.
- yongshin 11y agoWhat are some qualities of a CEO that you wish to look for in a startup founder?
- sama 11y agoThe only universal job description of a CEO is to make sure the company wins. We look for people who are going to make their company win--compelling vision, clear communication, determination, intelligence, "good at business", etc.
- dave1619 11y agoCan you expand on your tweet that said you don't think selling software is a good business? Why isn't it a good business? What makes it so tough?
- rdl 11y agoWhere outside-USA would make the most sense for YC NONUS 1.0? Or at least, what factors would go into the decision?
- rdl 11y agoIs there anything YC could do to help YC companies with housing? It's not trivial for teams during YC to get housing in SFBA, but they have enough upside to put up with a lot, and usually figure out something. It's really hard for employees 1-N, especially at sub-market salaries, but without 10% equity stakes, to move to SFBA. It pretty much restricts you to people already-here, people who will live college dorm style, or people who are already well off. Too much of the money raised goes out the door in salary (taxed) to pay for housing.
- sama 11y agoYes, I think we will have to do something here. I keep hoping the local governments will fix this and keep being disappointed. I was really excited by Campus, and hope we see a lot more startups with similar ideas.
- stbullard 11y agoAs a non-YC founder living in SF, I'm really disappointed by this answer. Above, you mentioned a "bandaid" solution of increasing funding for YC founders to account for skyrocketing rent - but this only exacerbates the problem for everyone else, including YC companies' employees and the entire ecosystem that supports them. Tech workers' willingness and ability to pay ever-increasing rent, underwritten by salaries drawn from irrationally exuberant venture capital investment in tech (low interest rates elsewhere), is driving a housing bubble that, in a vicious cycle, is then further fueled by property investment justified by ever-increasing rents. I guess I was looking more for YC to take a leading role here in proposing solutions, rather than passively hoping for a fix. The simplest, as it seems to me: open a bleeder valve by providing incentives for successful YC companies to "settle" other startup hubs, or even just acting as a broker for bidding by those locations. I'm sure there are smarter fixes, but I can't see the harm in enacting these.
- rdl 11y agoThose are good ideas. (I'm a YC alum; I'm looking forward to applying and doing another YC startup at some point in the future, and I personally dislike SFBA.) YC has done a little bit of this informally (Alexis as "Ambassador to the East"), and a lot of YC founders are from other places and retain hiring/offices/etc. in those other places. There are lists, support networks, etc. I know of for YC companies resettled in Seattle, and probably in other places. There are also some YC companies which are explicitly "X for India", "Y for Brazil" where they obviously are based in those other places. There ARE a lot of YC companies which want to remain in SFBA, though, so looking at options like Campus (RIP; wonder what happened; would love to talk to the founder for a post-mortem) makes sense, too.
- gregdsouzaa 11y agoI read in an article that you are planning a trip to India towards the end of this year. It would be great if I could take your through an unique tour through the city which you plan to be in. I would love to shed light on 'Design for Culture' and explain how there are few startups actually designing businesses around unique cultural behaviors. If possible, how can we make that work?
- cbhl 11y agoIs there anything you think we (hackers/techies living in SF) can (or should) be doing to make housing in San Francisco more affordable, apart from voting no on Prop F and Prop I?
- sama 11y agoI think there is a great startup waiting to be started to figure out a new way for people to live in cities.
- tdbryant2 11y ago1/With the rise of nuclear energy and space startups, What will become the dominate source of energy: nuclear, rare elements in space (Helium 3)or a combination of both depending on the use cases? 2/How will this affect the global energy industry?
- throwaway41597 11y agoHow much love from the programmer for their language and stack do you recommend for a software-heavy product ? I mean should one launch a v1 ASAP in language X even though this clearly isn't a language they love or should they spend more time looking for something they want to work with in the long run because the product will require a lot of work. Thank you for spending time on HN on a regular basis! Would love other partners to do the same.
- misterbwong 11y agoHi Sam! Random question but I've read in a couple articles that your mom said by about 10, she would have been comfortable dropping you off alone in NYC. As a new parent, I'm intrigued by this. What kinds of things did your parents do with/for you to foster this level of independence? What had the biggest effect on you, personally?
- sama 11y agoI really lucked out big-time on the parent lottery. My parents were and are incredibly supportive of anything I was interested in. But they were never "hovering". That's a great combination.
- aliakhtar 11y agoFunny side story: When I was 13, I flew from Pakistan to Australia by myself, changed the flights in transit, etc.
- Noureddine 11y agoHi Sam, I am applying to the winter 2016 batch and I would like to ask you this: - what is the exact purpose of the company description in the application, is it a mission statement? - do you have examples of "something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered" - is it important for the evaluation process if another company has already succeeded in another market but with a similar approach as the one we propose? Should we talk about it in the application? Thank you for your help
- ph0rque 11y agoWhat do you recommend founders with families do when moving to the SV area for the duration of a YC batch? Take their families with them, or just move by themselves?
- sama 11y agoPersonally I'd want to take my family with me if at possible. One of the reasons we upped the amount of money we give companies was to help make this possible.
- cvursache 11y agoHey Sam! A question about your career path. Can you think of a specific point in time when you made the decision to focus more on the business side of things and less on writing code? If so, can you describe why you made that decision?
- sama 11y agoIn the very early days of Loopt, I sat down with @kogir and Alok and said "ok, who is going to do what?" I was definitely not the best coder for large projects on the team, although I can crush either of them in topcoder competitions 10 times out of 10 :D, and I seemed the best at the 'business' stuff, so I focused on that.
- neurotech1 11y agoWould you consider funding a Public Benefit Corporation?
- s0l0fndr 11y agoI saw the other reply but - specifically in regards to the Application : What tips do you have for a solo founder to make his application most useful to you? What information would you like to see to give you some confidence in the solo founder to move past this disadvantage?
- tkiley 11y agoYou've mentioned that co-founder fallouts are one of the most biggest problems facing companies at YC stage. Do you see any useful correlates to this problem? What types of teams tend to have infighting vs. those that don't?
- sama 11y agoThe biggest correlation is that teams that met recently fall apart much more often. The shared history seems to be valuable for keeping teams together through the very though times of a startup.
- rhabarba 11y agoGiven that there are regions in my country which have no good local events calendar yet but it would be easy to implement such an aggregator: would you recommend me to found a company for such a product? (Let's call it "WhatHappensInHannover.net" so we both know what is intended.)
- pforpineapple 11y agoMy startup is based in Paris, and it would be logistically tedious to move to SF (remote management, current customers ...) YC and the Bay area would be an immense deal to us : => Regardless of the product I'm building : Are the advantages of moving to SF enough to balance the immediate difficulties of leaving ? PS: We are building an AI (currently for students) that plugs into messaging apps. 150k messages exchanged already.
- sama 11y agoIt's so hard to answer this generally. It really depends on the situation of each particular startup. We have funded many startups from Paris specifically with teams there; I'd reach out to some of them and see how it worked.
- arthurquerou 11y agoHey, CEO of MotionLead here (YC W14), feel free to reach at arthur -at- motionlead.com, I'm currently in Paris.
- pforpineapple 11y agoThank you Arthur, I will get in touch
- krstck 11y agoWhat (or who) are you currently reading?
- sama 11y agoThe last two books I read were Sapiens and The Supermen (given to be by @dang). Highly recommend both.
- Paul_S 11y agoPlease, you have to also tell us the authors if you really want to recommend them.
- pavornyoh 11y ago@Paul_S, I may be wrong and if it the same book I am thinking then see below. I hope this helps. 1)Sapiens (A brief history of humankind). The book authored by Yuri Noah Harari 2)TheSupermen (The story of seymour cray and the technical wizards behind the supercomputer). The book authored by Charles J. Murray.
- wirddin 11y agoHey, I know it is recommended that you move to the bay area during the 3 months, but what happens to the companies which target local markets? Is it possible to gather knowledge about the local market and also the product while staying away from your core user base, and also, how do the partners take care of different kinds of market the startups target? Example, Indian market/users/plans are considered to be a lot different than other countries. Thanks :)
- znt 11y agoCould you give advice on how to find like-minded co-founders? And what do you think makes someone "good co-founder material"?
- sama 11y agoThe best way to do this from what I've seen is to meet people at school or at work that seem interested in building things. Work with them on interesting projects, and see you seem to work well with.
- msvan 11y agoHi Sam. There's a million questions and I have not read them all; so if you have answered this question already, please feel free to ignore it. It seems that much of what YC funds these days lies in combinations of software with other disciplines such as biology, law, hardware, energy, and so forth. Is there any room for the pure-software/sales startup anymore, or does the future lie in interdisciplinary startups?
- annie_ab1 11y agoHi Sam! Nice to connect with you here. I am an Indian woman. I am a Biotechnology and Management graduate with around 5 years of managerial experience. How can I break into tech industry with no background in computer science?
- tkkk 11y agoIn 3 years I will move to US and apply to YC, but that's forever away. I want to start doing now. Is there a checklist, or a blueprint, or a list of topics, or a list of books that you can recommend that will cover the most important/basic/low-level aspects of building a company? What should I be thinking about? I'm looking for the backbone; I can work on figuring out the proper shape of what I'm building along the way.
- sama 11y agoI took a stab at this here: http://startupclass.samaltman.com http://startupclass.samaltman.com I'm working on a sort of startup playbook. It's long but will hopefully be helpful.
- tkkk 11y agoAwesome, thank you. And a startup playbook sounds amazing.
- bambang150 11y agoI have read and watch all of the videos. It is amazing to think this is for free, thanks Sam
- meeper16 11y agoWhat do you think about a startup that builds its own hedge fund to finance itself through its own machine learning and AI algos?
- pixelpanic 11y agoHow did you learn to code? What would you recommend to aspiring developers?
- sama 11y agoSelf-taught to start, then I took an amazing CS course from Georgeann Kepchar in high school who is one of my personal heroes. I guess I'd recommend the same path--start studying yourself, and find a great teacher at some point.
- jules 11y agoI'm curious why YC chose to include a video in the application. Have you done any tests regarding bias towards people that present themselves well or are simply attractive? Or would such a bias be intentional since other people (i.e. investors) are going to be biased the same way?
- Danilka 11y agoYour talks and latest actions suggest that YC is now more dedicated to making a better future, rather than helping individuals succeed. (thank you for that) Our startup is a for-profit company. However, as a part of our strategy we are making a lot of medical data open sourced. Even if we completely fail, we will move the leave an extremely positive footprint on traditional Chinese medicine industry. Q: 1. How would you suggest balancing good intensions for the industry with making money? 2. Should we reflect this in the application and how? Thank you!
- djhn 11y agoSounds interesting. Link?
- Danilka 11y agoNot finished yet, but I'm happy to show sketches and explain everything. Ping me any time at d@spaceherbs.com or just call 415.960.9373 (Dan) First versions are: http://spaceherbs.com/client/old/client/index.html http://spaceherbs.com/client/old/client/index.html http://spaceherbs.com/herbs http://spaceherbs.com/herbs http://spaceherbs.com/client/new/client/index.html http://spaceherbs.com/client/new/client/index.html
- ThatMightBePaul 11y agoFor YCR, have you considered grants from other foundations? For instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is basically just looking for opportunities to have the biggest possible impact. I think a lot of your future goals may line up: clean energy, global healthcare, etc.
- devy 11y agoSam, in regards to the YC research, do you actively go out to recruit scientists or do they have to come to YC to apply? Can you give a little bit more details on the recruitment process? I have a friend who's a physicist working on graphene and he would really like to apply.
- sama 11y agoFor now we are recruiting them. Someday we'd like to have a way for them to apply.
- thewhitetulip 11y agoHi Sam, I am from India, do you accept Indian startups? If so do you have the rule of minimum two founders? Do you need the startup to have a product first? Also what do you recommend for a person wanting to start a company, I have an idea which seems good, but right now I do a job and can't sort of jump to YC, I'd like to do it sometime later though. Any thoughts?
- sama 11y agoYes. No--we will fund single founders, but it's harder. No. The best thing is just to do it--there is no pre-startup thing really.
- tmalsburg2 11y agoI think you mentioned somewhere that you are aiming for early-career researchers, not so much for established group leaders. Being an early-career researcher myself (postdoc), my first thought was that your program could easily turn out to be a trap. At first, it looks like a fantastic opportunity because freedom and independence, etc. However, I'm sure that you are looking for high risk / high reward projects. So there is, by definition, a very real possibility that some of your funded projects will fail. What happens with the PIs of those projects? It will be very hard for them to return to a more traditional career stream in academia because they will lack a strong publication record and teaching experience. Researchers are in this respect different from start-up founders, because a failed start-up is not the end of the world and you can start over again. In contrast to that, there are usually no second chances in academia, at least not at that career stage. So it seems that you are asking people to stake everything on one card. My question is: How are you going to manage the individual career risks associated with this approach to science funding?
- sama 11y agoWell, that's fucked up about academia. All the more reason to create alternatives. Do you really want to be part of a system that does not allow for failure? At a minimum, I expect YCR researchers to be turning down job offers from YC companies all the time.
- zipppy 11y agoI may be missing something, but I think the person you responded to was expressing that they fear you are setting up that exact situation: that there is no room for failure.
- tmalsburg2 11y agoI fully agree with your analysis of the shortcomings of the academic system, but that's really a lame response and suggests that you didn't think this through. We're not talking about people in their early twenties who can invest some years in crazy experiments without fearing the consequences. Researchers at that stage have invested a substantial chunk of their lives in their careers and many of them have families to support. It would be foolish of them to take such a risk. If your attitude is, fuck them, it was their mistake to take up a career in academia, you will not attract the best people.
- coltr 11y agoDo you personally work 'startup-like' hours everyday, or is it a little more relaxed? 8 hours/day?
- sama 11y agoI work a lot. But I love what I do.
- markvitals 11y agoHi Sam. If you have a startup that is relatively easy to launch with traction and the one which is hard to launch and without traction, which one will you choose? And how important is to have users?
- larrys 11y ago1)I made a comment elsewhere that I felt that YC (and you in particular) had it's hands in to many pots and appeared to be doing to many things. With all of the things that you are doing (yc research just added for example) how do you feel that you will be able to keep up the high quality base purpose of YC? 2) You just gave 10m to fund YC Research. Was that because no other partners wanted to get involved in the project and in order to get their agreement (and show how important you felt it was) you decided to put your own money where your mouth was? It just seemed odd to me that it is a YC project yet you put your personal money in it (is the reason for the question).
- Fede_V 11y agoHi sama, First of all, thanks for the 10 million dollar donation for YC research. That's an amazing gesture, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the scientific research model get completely disrupted - it's in a terrible state and it needs a big shove. - Given your donation, what are your thoughts on philanthropy? - Most of your advice is for founders, however, what should an employee look in an early stage start up when deciding whether to join? Obviously, the decision is much easier if the company has started growing exponentially, but before that?
- sama 11y ago1) I generally believe in trying to find the most-impactful areas to donate, and also concentrating on areas that are important to me personally, and also areas where I am uniquely suited to make a difference. This seems like a good intersection. 2) A controversial thing I believe is that unless you are getting multiple percent of equity, it's usually a bad deal to join an early-stage startup that hasn't yet found product-market fit and the resulting growth (there is a big exception here for hard tech startups that will take a long time to produce a product but be incredibly valuable if they're able to). We've noticed that the best startups tend to not hire employees for awhile. One of the reasons, it seems, is they are able to convince much better people to join once things start working.
- Danilka 11y agoMany people suggest showing drafts of YC applications to founders of YC companies. The whole point of the exercise is to help founders pass the YC filtering mechanism. I feel like it's a waste of everybody's time. Instead, I am asking YC founders to do quick office hours with us and refer to YC if they liked what they saw. (which I have no control of). Am I doing the wrong thing and going to get rejected for not polishing the application enough?
- sama 11y agoThat sounds like a good plan.
- ideathing27 11y agoY Combinator has a record of supporting innovative ideas which come from the relative margins of the tech community, beginning with its invention of the startup accelerator as a concept. - Do you feel that Y Combinator's increasing visibility has helped your mission to attract a wide range of applicants beyond established tech industry insiders? - How do you manage the risk that your corresponding increase in competitiveness could lower the chances of acceptance for less polished but still innovative applications from people with fewer industry connections?
- sama 11y ago1) Yes! That's really helped up expand into new areas. 2) The partnership talks about this all the time. We're very focused on not letting it happen. Far, far worse for us to miss one Airbnb than to fund 10 decent (and credible-sounding) companies.
- ideathing27 11y agoThank you for sharing your perspective. It's very encouraging to hear that!
- pnathan 11y agoHi Sam, I'm not on the shortlist of anyone for "smartest people in the field", but I have a keen interest & passion for research. I suspect there are many people like me. Do you anticipate that YCR will have a track for people like me to participate, or will it be aiming for the creme de la creme as a rule?
- Thriptic 11y agoHi Sam, I have a number of ideas for companies which I would like to explore, but I am constantly hamstrung by the fact that I don't have the technical skills required. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am non-technical (I'm a bioengineer transitioning into data science) but I certainly am not a developer per say. Do you have any advice on how to find potential technical co-founders?
- baristaGeek 11y agoAny book recommendations for really early stage entrepreneurs? (The best thing to do is execute, but a book or 2 will never hurt).
- edanm 11y agoHi Sam, Thanks for doing this. 1. What do you consider your best professional accomplishment? 2. Have you ever visited Israel?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jrpt 11y agoThe cost of rent in the Bay Area is getting really high, both SF and down south. The archetypal startup in a garage in Palo Alto is not as affordable as it once was. For various policy reasons it's really hard for new people to move to the area without paying an arm and a leg in rent. Do you or YC have any thoughts on things you could do to help this, if any?
- sama 11y agoThe bandaid is we increase the amount of money we give to teams. We do have some longer-term thoughts if the area can't get its act together and fix the problem.
- seeingfurther 11y agoI see a YC Campus with dorms in the future!
- Hydraulix989 11y agoBoostVC does this already by providing housing at Draper University.
- Hydraulix989 11y agoPre-YC startups could benefit from the Bay Area ecosystem while they are still building their MVP and getting initial traction to the point where they have something that they CAN apply to YC with. I know very promising founders personally that were stuck working in parents' basements in the midwest because they did not yet have the resources to move to the Bay Area. How can YC help during this critical "early development" (or should I say, exploration) stage for founders building companies? Is there a way it can help insulate early founders from learning the hard lessons the hard way? Traditional VCs would call these bets way too "risky."
- DanFeldman 11y agoThis is sort of what the YC Fellowship sought to address, or at least addressed as a byproduct. There's a few companies in the current batch from the midwest/east coast at the 'early development' stage who moved to the bay. If YC can scale YCF up, it should help.
- philip1209 11y agoWhat's the future of YCF?
- jbverschoor 11y agoI currently have no 'unicorn'-ideas. Applying doesn't seem useful at this moment. Is there a list of startups that need help? If so, why did they get funded when the team isn't right yet?
- sama 11y agoIdeas do not start out as unicorn ideas. They start small and morph into something bigger.
- giarc 11y agoI wonder if the AirBnB team thought they were a unicorn when they started? Likely not.
- eonw 11y agoi would think not, considering there were already others operating in the exact same space... they were probably just hoping for at least a small piece of the pie.
- Uhhrrr 11y agoYou said before co-hosting an Obama fundraiser that you would ask him about surveillance issues[0]. Did you get a chance to do this? Were you able to give input on any other issues? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7612471
- Danilka 11y agoWhat are your thoughts are on the whole concept of living on Mars? How feasible is it; how important is the fact of sustainable life on another planet; how would you approach such a problem? Thank you!
- raymondgh 11y agoWould you like to speak at HackingEDU (San Mateo, October 23-25), the world's largest education hackathon? http://www.hackingedu.co http://www.hackingedu.co
- brayton 11y agoWhat are you looking for in block chain / bitcoin applications?
- philippnagel 11y agoHi Sam, Any tips on balancing uni, research there (pre-doc) and a startup (co-founder, CTO)? Do you think it is necessary to give up one for another?
- sama 11y agoI don't think you can do all 3 well at the same time, nor should you try. Pick what you most want to excel at for now and focus on that.
- philippnagel 11y agoThought so too. Right now I am more drawn towards the first two occupations I mentioned. The startup involves a very interesting business model. However it is technically not very challenging (B2B marketplace). It just seems to be very hard to wind down my engagement there. My main interest lies within AI (Philosophy/CS student). My thirst for knowledge hasn't been fulfilled yet and so far I really enjoy the academic atmosphere. I really have to set priorities now. Thanks for your quick response.
- choppaface 11y agosama: Jacqueline Novogratz (CEO of Acumen) once said that a major challenge of building modern finance in developing nations is that developing communities often have lots of trust (within themselves) but not much accountability. In your position at YC, founders and investors alike trust you with lots of information. You have a unique view of where money is flowing and how equipped companies are to compete with each other. I'm sure you'd have amazing answers for Peter Thiel's "tell me something you believe is true but nobody else agrees with" and you'd probably be right on a lot of the points due to information available uniquely to you. As YC grows, what actions do you plan on taking to ensure its accountability? In particular, how do you plan to help founders who for whatever reason don't directly participate in YC?
- sama 11y agoI think we're pretty accountable--if for example we started misusing information that would quickly become known and founders would stop applying to YC. I think most things we do to help YC startups help the community in general. Think how much better the ecosystem for founders is now than 10 years ago! We take our responsibility as a sort of flag-bearer for the startup movement seriously.
- pedrotp 11y agoHey Sam! What are you (and YC) doing to enable more founder diversity? Any initiatives to reach out to black/latino founders to invite them to apply?
- sama 11y agoWe do a lot of different outreach, but to your specific question, we recently did this: http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-hours-for-black-and-hispanic-founders http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-hours-for-black-a...
- gailees 11y agoIn your interview with Kara Swisher on Decode, you talked about how investing in the stage of companies that YC invests in requires a very different skillset and a lot more hands-on work than traditional later-stage VC funds are willing to do. How did YC gain such a huge advantage in doing this over the other incubator/accelerators?
- akshxy 11y agoHi Sama, I'm the founder of nanowe. We're launching an IoT product this year and have a great team working all days and nights on it. I get the feeling our startup can't be that bad not to be a part of YC as we have everything in place but need a great platform & community to showcase what we're building. Hardware is tough and takes more money and we're about to raise a convertible note using YC SAFE docs. Does this make our case weaker to be accepted into YC?
- sama 11y agoDefinitely not--we certainly understand that some startups need to raise more money than others.
- akshxy 11y agoGreat! I'll submit the application asap.
- sbierwagen 11y agoThe link on your front page pointing at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Ahmedabad-becomes-incubation-hotspot/articleshow/34750990.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Ahmedabad... returns a TLS error due to an akamai misconfiguration. All the press releases in https://www.nanowe.com/newsroom/press-releases/ https://www.nanowe.com/newsroom/press-releases/ just show headlines, no content. From your website, I'm having a hard time figuring out what your company actually does.
- akshxy 11y agoThanks for reporting the error, some more bugs might be there, we will fix them before hitting the market. Well our company is just our people - and what we do best is we don't give up! https://www.nanowe.com/timeline https://www.nanowe.com/timeline We also build products, some of them have failed and some we killed recently in order to focus on one big thing.
- cperciva 11y agoIs there a place for Tarsnap at YC? Applying for YC funding doesn't make sense for several reasons: 1. I want to be king, not rich; everything I hear tells me that YC pushes companies to grow fast and increase their valuations, and that's something I fundamentally don't care about. I know that I'm stubborn enough that this would just result in a lot of frustration on both sides. 2. Tarsnap doesn't need the money. It's solidly profitable, and I honestly have no idea what I would do with investment money. 3. I don't want to live in the bay area -- not even for 3 months. Granted, this seems like it may be less of an issue now that it's possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get medical insurance; but the bay area is fundamentally not somewhere I can ever imagine myself wanting to live. 4. Converting Tarsnap into a US corporation would eat a lot of time and money. I completely understand why it's necessary for companies YC is going to invest in; but it's another reason why having YC invest in Tarsnap doesn't make sense. I think YC and its portfolio companies are doing great and interesting things, and I'd like to be part of the community... but as explained above, taking funding doesn't make sense; when I applied for the YC fellowship (I know it was a stretch) you told me to apply for funding instead; and you haven't asked me to be part of YCR. Is there some other option here?
- chubot 11y agoI think YC is the wrong place for this, for all the reasons you say. I don't see any reason that Tarsnap fits in YC besides "community", and even then it would be more of an outlier than a peer. It seems like it would fit in a community of people that are interested in lower risk, slower growing, but more personally lucrative businesses. YC companies do technically interesting things for sure, but a lot of the community is probably more about hiring, office space, fund raising, financials, and that sort of thing. These are all different for high risk startups. I heard about this "Micropreneur" thing several years ago. This is something that interests me, and I've been working part time on projects in this vein. It seems to me that people who want slower growth and less personal risk are inherently a little less "collaborative". That describes me and there's nothing wrong with it. Still, I understand the need to bounce ideas off of others, quickly fill in gaps in your knowledge, etc.
- 11y ago
- rokhayakebe 11y agoHow did you come about being President of YC (post your own startup)?
- vexir6369 11y agoWhat is YCs (and your) opinion on the casual gaming startups? Has YC received many applicants in the past of that nature and if any at all, what were the things that concerned you and what did you wish you saw more of?
- Laaw 11y agoWhen looking at founder groups, do you shy away from or gravitate towards founders who were friends before the company/idea?
- arkhanguelski 11y agoHi Sam. One of the questions in the application says: "If you have an online demo, what's the url?" Do you expect a video walkthrough like what Drew Houston from Dropbox did in his 2007 application or do you expect a link to a live demo that you can click through?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- srunni 11y agoI'm interested in your opinion on the potential for the disruption of the academic publishing system, and what role YCR can play in that. For example, making it easy for 3rd parties to reanalyze data generated/published by another group, then make that available so that others can easily compare different analyses of the same data. This is already happening to some degree, but getting raw data can still be quite difficult. Will YCR researchers' publications be required to be open access? Should it be possible for the peer-review process to happen in a more open forum than the judgment of a couple of handpicked reviewers? Some fields (such as mathematics) have seen this happen already, but it's not very common in other fields, such as the life sciences.
- smurfysmurf 11y agoHi Sam, I am a recent transplant from FL to seattle to work for a tech company - it was a big move but I feel like it was worth it. Currently I work in more of a technical position but eventually I want to move to more of a leadership position as I see myself interested in driving business and solving logistical and business type issues. My questions in, what can you recommend for someone who wants to transition from a technical background to that sort of area? Thanks!
- lacker 11y agoMove up in your technical position til you get to be a tech lead or a manager.
- ausjke 11y agoWhat is the "success ratio" about YC graduates?
- azinman2 11y agoHi Sam, Non-YC question here. I remember years ago at some of apples events loopt was featured on stage by Jobs (I think?) How did you manage to get that kind of promotion? Thanks Aaron
- ramkumarceg 11y agolike we have mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10360682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10360682 we have curated the AMA at http://www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator http://www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator
- qunicorn 11y agoWhile the link has * Many other Q&As related to YCombinator at one place The Q&A for this thread itself can be found in a separate tab on the page labeled as "Winter 2015 Application" on the link http://www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator http://www.askmeanything.me/brands/ycombinator
- jhamar 11y agoCheck us out . . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTsvDc959-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTsvDc959-s
- jdcarluccio 11y agoHi Sam, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Wanted to ask you what do you think about Chamath comments about the lack of diversity in VC partners affecting the companies they invest? How do you see this affecting YC?
- rokhayakebe 11y agoWill YC invest in companies that never plan to go public or get acquired, but could pay dividends?
- johnewu 11y agoIsn't raising money a form of validation of your product/idea
- ju-st 11y agoGetting paid by customers for you product is an even better form of validation :-) But yeah it is, many people here have obviously fear of rejection because of this.
- pavornyoh 11y ago@Johnewu, No, it is not. There have been several companies that have done that and failed. Think Quirky, think Webvan among others. Being able to make money, showing clear metrics of how that is going to be done, customers keep coming back etc.. is validation of your idea/product. For example, if you told your parents you were going to start a company and they decided to help you with money, do you consider that a validation of your idea/product? I am curious to see your answer.
- raziel2702 11y agoIf YC research is a success, would you consider establishing a website onto which researchers can publish the data and the analysis they did to reach their conclusions? Often I see people say what they used to take the data and then the end result of the analysis, but never do I see any details whatsoever about the specific techniques or steps they took to transform the raw data into what ends up being published. It's a very frustrating thing for me and I don't see a mainstream or more easily accessible way for me to post my raw data + analysis other than making a blog for myself, which I have no easy way of promoting in a paper. I think it would be great to be the ones that set the tone for transparency and it would be a fantastic way of teaching others how to analyze data, or how to catch errors in someone's analysis. Right now there's a huge wall of obscurity in that we have to take the author's word for it. I know many things cannot be reproduced in experimental science, but the analysis of the data should be. I can't see a reason why people would not want to share their data in academia since most people are funded by DOE, NSF, NIH and DOD and hence by the taxpayer. I think it would be great for pedagogical purposes, it would encourage best practices and it would help us be honest.
- adenadel 11y agoA few weeks ago I submitted this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10213547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10213547 about one of Peter Thiel's biotech investments and the top comment asked "How does someone very intelligent like Peter Thiel make investment decisions in an area where he lacks a huge amount of background knowledge?". I'm curious how you personally and Y Combinator as a whole goes about making investments in areas where you don't have great expertise. For example, how do you evaluate biotech markets and the YC biotech companies? How did you evaluate your energy investments?
- rrrichter 11y agoAs a CS student from Brazil, what opportunities do you think Brazil has in terms of startups that is different from silicon valley and which methods that work there would work here as well??
- berpasan 11y agoI'm not Sam, but I'm a Brazilian enterpreneur. The bad side of Brazil, compared to SV, is we have way less capital available to fund startups, specially earlier and more innovative ones. Our government doesn't help either, definitely way harder to be an Enterpreneur here (not only for startups, the same is true for small businesses as well). The good part is you don't have as much competition when doing a product that targets the local market. And there are much more unsolved problems and needs to be tackled here. I believe most of YC's advice is universal and fits Brazil's startups well. Some are even more important here: try to make money from day one and spend as little as you can - you can't count on investors money here, no matter how good your KPIs are.
- pbreit 11y agoDo you think venture investors ought to have higher "hit rates"? (Note: I do not believe things like Dropbox and Airbnb sounded crazy in the beginning).
- dzlobin 11y agoHey Sam, hopefully this still finds you. Are you guys considering creating more RFS? Did they work out for you initially?
- jwgaryhen 11y agoI'm the president
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jwgaryhen 11y agoCan I hack please it's like the coumputer won't give me no money so can you let me hack to get money
- creolabs 11y ago@sama We were interviewed last year but we were not selected. We then followed all your advices and we invested all our time developing and finalizing the product. We'll launch our first beta version within a month and we are receiving a tremendous amount of interest. However we can't really yet prove a traction. What should we prove (or what should we have done) in order to try to apply again?
- tomrod 11y agoSam I don't have any particular questions for you. I just want to let you know that I appreciate for the work you put in, both to HN and to Y Combinator. Perhaps I speak for the whole community on that point. Best of luck. -tomrod
- mmccord 11y agoHey @sama! How many applicants on average get the opportunity to be interviewed?
- just_to_ask_sam 11y agoHi Sam! I'm the CEO & Founder of a 4-person SaaS company – profitable as most of our employees are outside the US. We're 4 years old, and are now doing ~$30k/mo in revenue. I started the company young and have learned a lot. I question whether this is just a waste of my time, and whether I should just sell and start something new, but my worry is that by the time the new thing kicks off, THIS company will be making far more. What are your thoughts on WHEN to sell a startup, and whether to even sell?
- anon3_ 11y agoYou said something a bit earlier about HN changing how it moderates flagged comments. I also see others who are able to swathe away truthful things, while my contesting of it gets me reprimanded. I saw on your twitter once, you were critiquing how a mis-tweet can be portrayed by certain people. There is always going to be an outrage circus. Why let them use virtue signalling as a way to censor ideas they don't like? I can't promise I'll agree and rubberstamp every idea. I think to have a good conversation, the system has to have the integrity to let an opposing view stand. I put a lot of thought into my comments and being a good contributor. I give consideration to other commentators. Can you please unban this account and its' IP address?
- kskc 11y agoDo you have African startups joining YC?
- kskc 11y agoDo you have African startups joining YC?
- waliurjs 11y agoCan a 'yc interview invitation' be used in the embassy the same way a regular 'visa invitation from a relative living in US' to get a B1 visa?
- berpasan 11y agoI would get the Visa right away. I got a B1/B2 (tourism and business). I just showed my application form and the interview dates and it was enough. At least here (Brazil) the hole US VISA process takes much longer than the 2 weeks of head start YC gives the founders it invites to the interviews.
- paulomartins 11y agoGreat AMA, thanks Sam.
- mbhambry 11y ago1) Indian Startups are also welcomed? 2)The application process is a bit change. Founders are asked to provide a video of their own? What do you think is the reason for that?