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Quite respectfully, your tone is disparaging and I don't think you understand what's going on over here. I might be wrong in this, but YC is not in the busines

Quite respectfully, your tone is disparaging and I don't think you understand what's going on over here. I might be wrong in this, but YC is not in the business of precisely predicting the future. It is within the business of creating and curating a network. Let me explain why, most VC funds are organised around a theme - they have a particular industry that they look at and then they create a narrow window around it and predict that by time X, this will be worth a lot, so they'll find people to capture Y. YC on the other hand has a thesis focussed around its own network. Yes, they seem to fund around general trends, but mostly they give smart people money and get out of their way. Let's unpack that. Let's say you have 20 smart people and you want to guide them, give them resources, and then stay out of their way. What's the best way to do that? Well, the best way seems to be to create a peer group - a band of sister + brothers - who have set out to do something extraordinary. And then let common stress signals bake in the ties. Now let's assume that you have these ties between people i.e. they become good friends. What happens when one of them achieves success? Well they'll start getting approached by people asking for help too. Young people, lost, and trying to do something extraordinary. Where do you think they'll refer these people on to? So what started out as a support group, suddenly starts growing organically, and YC starts getting its pick of founders provided that the original people they seed it with are the right kind. The kind of people who attract other intelligent people. And identifying that is literally the core job of YC, which seems to be jl's job... Is it unfair to say that she made YC given that?

erroneousfunk 11y ago
I'm very familiar with what YC does. I'm in no way arguing that she had less of an impact or contribution to the company than any of the other co-founders. A little food for thought, however: Let's look at the other three founders: - Robert Morris: Computer scientist (of Morris Worm fame) - Trevor Blackwell: Software engineer - Paul Graham: Programmer, PhD in philosophy with a concentration in computer science So when Paul and Jessica started YC, they recruited two of Paul's friends who, I imagine, they thought would give them the skills they needed to make YC successful. They didn't run out and recruit psychologists, managers, social media people, or motivational speakers -- they recruited technical people. If your theory about what was most necessary to the company is correct, why did they seek out Trevor Blackwell and Robert Morris?
- nostrademons 11y ago
  It's sorta weird to read your comments because they have a certain lens on the world that's very much at-odds with published stories about how YC actually got started. They didn't "recruit" RTM or TLB because they had specific skills that YC needed. They asked them because PG, RTM, and TLB had previously founded Viaweb together, and so they knew they could work well together and all had shared history and cultural knowledge. And then if you go back to the founding of Viaweb, PG and RTM started it because they were best friends at Harvard, well before RTM wrote the Morris Worm (indeed, if you read some of the news articles on the worm, PG is quoted). TLB was brought on because they asked all their friends "Who's the smartest person you know?", Trevor's name came up, and then when they met him, he rewrote their entire product in Smalltalk in 2 weeks.
  - erroneousfunk 11y ago
    I'm not saying "recruit" in terms of "they got a recruiter" or "sent out some formal offer to try and win them over," or "conducted a job interview," but there was certainly a point at which they "asked" them to join on because of their existing relationship. They recruited them. We're saying the same thing. My original point, however, that the Jessica Livingston article seems to stress odd parts of her personality and role in the company when you consider that she was the only non-technical co-founder, she was dating the founder, and Paul Graham has a history of making boneheaded statements about women in the industry. Yes, it's a controversial position to take, and, no, I'm certainly not belittling her role -- she absolutely made a huge impact on the company. However, the wording, and tone of the article, I thought, was poor.
    - nostrademons 11y ago
      I'm just curious why you think these are "odd" parts of her personality, particularly when you've said elsewhere in this comment and elsewhere that this role and these skills are very necessary for a business and she's made a huge impact on the company? She is a founder of YC, BTW - that's what it means to be a co-founder. You could just as easily say that PG was dating the founder of YC, and she made use of his technical expertise and that of his friends in judging startups.

erroneousfunk 11y ago

I'm very familiar with what YC does. I'm in no way arguing that she had less of an impact or contribution to the company than any of the other co-founders. A little food for thought, however: Let's look at the other three founders: - Robert Morris: Computer scientist (of Morris Worm fame) - Trevor Blackwell: Software engineer - Paul Graham: Programmer, PhD in philosophy with a concentration in computer science So when Paul and Jessica started YC, they recruited two of Paul's friends who, I imagine, they thought would give them the skills they needed to make YC successful. They didn't run out and recruit psychologists, managers, social media people, or motivational speakers -- they recruited technical people. If your theory about what was most necessary to the company is correct, why did they seek out Trevor Blackwell and Robert Morris?

nostrademons 11y ago
It's sorta weird to read your comments because they have a certain lens on the world that's very much at-odds with published stories about how YC actually got started. They didn't "recruit" RTM or TLB because they had specific skills that YC needed. They asked them because PG, RTM, and TLB had previously founded Viaweb together, and so they knew they could work well together and all had shared history and cultural knowledge. And then if you go back to the founding of Viaweb, PG and RTM started it because they were best friends at Harvard, well before RTM wrote the Morris Worm (indeed, if you read some of the news articles on the worm, PG is quoted). TLB was brought on because they asked all their friends "Who's the smartest person you know?", Trevor's name came up, and then when they met him, he rewrote their entire product in Smalltalk in 2 weeks.
- erroneousfunk 11y ago
  I'm not saying "recruit" in terms of "they got a recruiter" or "sent out some formal offer to try and win them over," or "conducted a job interview," but there was certainly a point at which they "asked" them to join on because of their existing relationship. They recruited them. We're saying the same thing. My original point, however, that the Jessica Livingston article seems to stress odd parts of her personality and role in the company when you consider that she was the only non-technical co-founder, she was dating the founder, and Paul Graham has a history of making boneheaded statements about women in the industry. Yes, it's a controversial position to take, and, no, I'm certainly not belittling her role -- she absolutely made a huge impact on the company. However, the wording, and tone of the article, I thought, was poor.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    I'm just curious why you think these are "odd" parts of her personality, particularly when you've said elsewhere in this comment and elsewhere that this role and these skills are very necessary for a business and she's made a huge impact on the company? She is a founder of YC, BTW - that's what it means to be a co-founder. You could just as easily say that PG was dating the founder of YC, and she made use of his technical expertise and that of his friends in judging startups.