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"We once tried an experiment where we funded a bunch of promising founding teams with no ideas in the hopes they would land on a promising idea after we funded
by billmalarky 11y ago
"We once tried an experiment where we funded a bunch of promising founding teams with no ideas in the hopes they would land on a promising idea after we funded them.
All of them failed."
I was under the impression Reddit fell within this category. I recall a PG quote that went something like "we [Y combinator] hate your idea, but we like you [Alexis and Steve]" in reference to reddit's initial YC funding.
I know Reddit isn't considered a smashing success by VC standards (originally sold for roughly 15-20 MM), but I certainly wouldn't call it a failure.
- tptacek 11y agoHe's referring to a YC batch in which founders were specifically offered the option of applying with no idea (that's not what Reddit's founders did).
- Schwolop 11y agoI had assumed they'd all failed, but don't remember seeing any discussion of it from sama. Was there ever a public post (other than this playbook) that announced the failure of that experiment, and any take-aways beyond the obvious?